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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are diced boiled potatoes simmered in white sauce, seasoned with pepper and sea salt, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Season the potatoes with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the seasoned potatoes to the white sauce.

  3. Cook slowly until the potatoes are hot.

  4. Add the minced parsley and stir carefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish, with a soft texture that absorbs the sauce.
Thin white sauce
Supplies moisture and a creamy coating that carries the flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the potatoes are hot. Gentle heat warms the potatoes through without scorching the thin white sauce or breaking its smooth emulsion. Rapid boiling can cause the sauce to scorch on the base of the pan or separate, leaving a grainy texture.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, 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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