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Creamed Potatoes

A creamy potato dish made with diced potatoes, milk, butter, flour, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Pare and boil or steam the potatoes until just done, not too soft.

  2. Let the potatoes cool, then dice them.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Once hot, add the butter and flour that have been creamed together.

  3. Stir until the mixture thickens.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the diced potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, and cream.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the dish, holding their shape while staying tender.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the starch swells.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Cream
Adds extra richness and a silkier texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture thickens. Flour must be fully hydrated and heated in the milk so its starch swells and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves a thin, starchy-tasting sauce, while the flour can clump if it is not creamed with the butter first.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, milk, butter, cream, 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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