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Potatoes with Cream Sauce

A dish of boiled potatoes served in a creamy sauce of milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potatoes with Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, butter, salt, and red pepper.

Finish the dish

  1. Add the potatoes cut into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Just before serving, add the parsley and lemon juice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, carrying the flavour and body of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch gelatinises with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the sauce feel smooth and silky on the palate.
Potatoes
Form the starchy base of the dish, absorbing the sauce and providing its main body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour, butter, salt, and red pepper. Flour must be whisked smoothly into the hot milk; if added in clumps it forms lumps instead of thickening evenly, so the sauce turns grainy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, lemon, flour, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, lemon, flour, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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