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Stewed Potatoes, Epicurean Style

Stewed potatoes simmered in broth with butter, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Stewed Potatoes, Epicurean Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes into ¼‑inch thick slices.

  2. Place them in a flat saucepan and moisten with broth to cover.

Cook

  1. Season with salt and pepper, cover the saucepan, and set it on a brisk fire.

  2. Cook until the broth is nearly reduced and the potatoes are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter, parsley, and lemon juice, then toss off the heat until the butter melts.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Small new potatoes
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the cooking broth as they become tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating when tossed with the hot potatoes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the butter.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that softens the potatoes and seasons them as it reduces.

The step that matters

Cook until the broth is nearly reduced. Stopping before the liquid is nearly gone leaves the potatoes watery, while cooking too long can scorch them in the pan. Aim for tender potatoes with just a little liquid left to coat them.

Swap the potato

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

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

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