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Potatoes a LA Creme

Creamed potatoes made with butter, cream, parsley, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoes a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes and slice them.

  2. Chop the parsley.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, stir the butter and flour together over medium heat until they form a paste.

  2. Add the parsley, cream, salt, and pepper to the saucepan and mix thoroughly.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the sliced potatoes to the mixture and warm everything together.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,303 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,445 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
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and with flour forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, coating sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the potatoes a smooth, silky texture.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a touch of colour.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into a paste. Cooking flour in fat over medium heat helps it dissolve evenly without lumps and removes raw flour taste. Cooking it too hot can scorch the butter and cause it to brown unevenly before the cream is added.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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