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Imitation New Potatoes

Boiled potatoes simmered in milk and water, then dried and served with a butter and salt cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Imitation New Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes.

  2. Place them in a cheesecloth sack and tie the top.

  3. In a saucepan, combine milk and water with a pinch of salt to cover the potatoes.

  4. Simmer slowly until the potatoes are done.

  5. Lift out the sack and let it drain in a colander for a few minutes.

  6. Place the potatoes in the oven to dry for five minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare a rich cream sauce with butter and salt.

  2. Remove the potatoes from the sack.

  3. Place them in a stone jar.

  4. Cover with the sauce.

  5. Serve in a deep vegetable dish.

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

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

Small round ripe potatoes
Provide the starch that becomes soft and fluffy when simmered and then mashed or served whole.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness to the potatoes as they simmer.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the cream sauce that coats the potatoes.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the potatoes are done. Gentle heat cooks the potatoes through evenly without breaking them apart or scorching the milk. Vigorous boiling can leave the outside mushy while the centre stays firm.

“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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