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Stewed Potatoes

A creamy dish of boiled potatoes simmered in butter, parsley, salt, pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, salt, and pepper, then pour in the cream.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Add the potatoes and serve

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into small pieces and add them to the cream.

  2. Allow the cream to boil around the potatoes.

  3. Add another tablespoon of butter and serve.

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

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + potatotop 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 bulk and starch that soak up the cream and give the dish body.
Cream
Supplies richness and moisture, and thickens as it boils down around the potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Allow the cream to boil around the potatoes. Cream can scorch on the base of the pan or boil over if left unattended. Boiling reduces the cream and fat separates if it runs too hot, so the mixture should be kept at a steady, controlled boil while the potatoes absorb the sauce.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, cream. 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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