Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 the potatoes
Boil the potatoes, peel them, and slice them.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, melt a lump of butter and add coarse sea salt, black pepper, flour, nutmeg, chopped parsley, and shallot.
Stir in some cream and continue stirring until the sauce boils.
Finish and serve
Add the sliced potatoes to the sauce and simmer for a couple of minutes.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Parsley + shallottop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,718 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,855 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together5,062 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 thickened sauce as they simmer.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce when cooked briefly in butter before the cream goes in.
- Cream
- Provides the liquid base and creamy texture of the sauce.
- Shallot
- Adds a mild aromatic onion flavour to the sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring the sauce until it boils. Flour thickens only when the starch heats enough to swell in the liquid. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury-tasting, and stirring prevents lumps forming on the base of the pan.
Flavor stand-ins for the shallot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, flour, nutmeg, parsley, cream):
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Spinachbetter flavor fit
- Shallotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, flour, nutmeg, parsley, cream. 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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