Name: Potatoes in Black Butter. {Pommes De Terre Au Beurre Noir.}
Ingredients: 12 potatoes of even size; salt; 2 ounces fresh butter; 1 teaspoon vinegar; 1 tablespoon chopped capers

Why it works: Potato and capers work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 224 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potatoes in Black Butter. {Pommes De Terre Au Beurre Noir.}

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the potatoes

Peel and boil the potatoes in salted water until cooked.
Drain the potatoes and place them in a deep dish.

Make the black butter

Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook until it is nearly black.
Add the vinegar and capers to the butter, stirring to combine.
Pour the nut-brown butter over the potatoes and serve immediately.

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.

Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together224 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,637 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + caperstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,453 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + vinegartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,608 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the main body of the dish, absorbing the butter and staying tender when boiled.
Fresh butter: Browns in the pan to form nutty, toasted flavour compounds, and carries the sauce over the potatoes.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the rich, nutty butter and balances its richness.
Capers: Contribute briny, sharp notes that stand out against the rich browned butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter to nearly black. Butter solids brown quickly once the water has boiled off, so the butter can move from nut-brown to burnt within seconds. Watch closely and remove it from heat at the right colour to avoid bitterness.

Swap the capers

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

Tarragonfits better
Garlicfits better
Parsleyfits better
Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, vinegar. 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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Potatoes in Black Butter. {Pommes De Terre Au Beurre Noir.}