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Fancy New Potatoes

Sautéed new potatoes with parsley and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Fancy New Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the potatoes

  1. Boil the new potatoes until tender, then drain the water.

  2. Add the parsley and butter, shaking them over low heat for 1-2 minutes.

Sauté the potatoes

  1. For sautéing, cut old potatoes into quarter-sized pieces.

  2. Boil the pieces in cold water until just boiling, then drain and dry them.

  3. Heat 2 oz of butter in a pan and cook the potatoes for 15-20 minutes, tossing occasionally until golden brown.

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

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

  3. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

New potatoes
Provide the starchy base that becomes tender when boiled and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Boil the pieces in cold water until just boiling, then drain and dry them.. Stopping at just boiling keeps the outside of the pieces firm. Drying them well removes surface water, so the potatoes can brown in the hot butter instead of steaming.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter. 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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