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Creamed Potatoes

A creamy potato dish made by simmering sliced potatoes in milk with butter and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place cold cut potatoes in a double boiler and almost cover with milk.

  2. Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of butter and a little salt.

  3. Cook for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently until creamy.

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

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy body that softens and thickens into a creamy texture as they cook.
Milk
Cooks the potatoes gently and adds moisture and richness to form a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring frequently during the long cook. Milk can scorch or stick to the bottom of the pan over a long cook. Frequent stirring keeps heat even and the potatoes creamy rather than burnt or lumpy.

“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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