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Potatoes with Milk

A baked dish of boiled potatoes simmered in a creamy milk and butter sauce with eggs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Potatoes with Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Slice the boiled potatoes and cover them with a clean cloth.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  3. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon.

  4. Gradually add the warm milk, seasoning with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little grated nutmeg.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil.

Cook the potatoes

  1. Add the sliced potatoes.

  2. Let the potatoes gently boil for about 15 minutes.

  3. Remove the stewpan from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the egg yolks with the remaining milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into the stewpan.

  3. Stir until thickened.

  4. Serve on a hot 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Flour
Flour cooked in butter forms a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Butter carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Boiled potatoes
Potatoes provide the starchy body of the gratin, absorbing the sauce as they cook.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken at around 160°F and can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Remove the pan from heat before adding them and stir steadily so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, cream, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg. 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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