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Stewed Potatoes, Hanoverian Style

Stewed potatoes cooked with broth, butter, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Potatoes, Hanoverian Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the potatoes.

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

Cook and finish

  1. Boil on a brisk fire until cooked.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and parsley.

  3. Toss well off the fire until the butter is melted.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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, cooking until tender in the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries flavour over the potatoes.
Broth
Provides the liquid that cooks the potatoes and seasons them as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boil on a brisk fire until cooked. The potatoes need enough liquid and heat to cook through evenly. If the broth boils away before they are tender, they can scorch or stay firm in the centre. Check them with a knife before adding the butter.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter. 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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