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New Potatoes

Steamed new potatoes mixed with butter, milk, salt, pepper, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Steam the potatoes in a saucepan with the cover off for 1-2 minutes to evaporate excess moisture.

  2. Using a three-pronged fork, break the potatoes into pieces, or mash them with a wooden spoon.

  3. Remove any black pieces from the potatoes.

Season and serve

  1. Add the butter, salt, and black pepper to the potatoes and mix well.

  2. Stir in the milk and heat over the fire until warm.

  3. Serve in a very hot dish.

Optional variations

  1. For variety, you can brown the potatoes in a Dutch oven.

  2. Optionally, boil and chop a mild Spanish onion, then mix it with the potatoes.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

New potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, providing starchy body that breaks down into a soft mash.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth texture and flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes become creamy and spreadable.

The step that matters

Evaporating excess moisture after steaming. Potatoes left wet become soggy and dilute the flavor. Briefly steaming with the lid off lets surface water evaporate, so the mash holds together and absorbs butter and milk well.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, milk. 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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