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Potatoes, Boulettes

Small balls of raw potatoes cooked in butter and chicken glaze, seasoned with coarse sea salt and powdered 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 ↓

Potatoes, Boulettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scoop out small balls of raw potatoes, about the size of a large pill.

Cook

  1. Place the potato balls in a saucepan with a lump of butter and a small piece of chicken glaze.

  2. Cover the saucepan and simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.

Serve

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and sprinkle with powdered parsley before serving.

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 + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw potatoes
Form the main body of the dish and cook through to a tender interior.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the potatoes brown lightly and taste rounder.
Chicken glaze
Adds concentrated savory flavor to the potatoes as they simmer.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, chicken. 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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