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Potatoes and Bacon

A stew of diced bacon, potatoes, and broth flavored with garlic and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,517 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Potatoes and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and dice the bacon into half‑inch pieces.

  2. Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes into quarter‑inch thick pieces.

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, heat the bacon with the sweet dripping or butter until lightly browned.

  2. Add the flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. Pour in the hot water or stock and add the bouquet garni and garlic.

  4. Cover and bring to a boil.

  5. Add the potatoes to the stewpan, cover, and cook until tender.

  6. Remove the seasoning and serve.

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. Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Clove + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Renders fat and browns, flavouring the stew base.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it mixes with the fat.
Potatoes
Absorb the stock and soften, becoming the body of the stew.
Sweet dripping or butter
Carries heat and adds richness to the browned bacon.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour must be mixed thoroughly into the hot fat so it cooks evenly and forms a smooth base; if it is left in clumps or not cooked briefly, the gravy can taste raw and turn lumpy when the liquid goes in.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, garlic, potato. 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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