Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
New Potatoes in Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub off the skins and wash the potatoes well.
Wipe them dry.
Cook
In a saucepan, combine the potatoes and butter.
Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, shaking or tossing occasionally.
Add salt when the potatoes begin to stew.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- New potatoes
- Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer gently in butter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, coating the potatoes as they cook and carrying flavour.
The step that matters
Simmer over low heat. Low, gentle heat lets the potatoes cook through and turn tender without the butter browning or burning. Occasional shaking or tossing keeps the potatoes coated and evenly cooked.
“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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