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Creamed Potatoes

A creamy potato dish baked with butter, flour, milk, and topped with breadcrumbs and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk (or milk and cream) while stirring continuously.

  3. Cook the sauce until it thickens.

Combine and bake

  1. Add the chopped potatoes.

  2. Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes absorb most of the milk.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

  4. Top with bread crumbs and cheese.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the top is brown.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley just before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps flavour the base before the flour is added.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that clings to the potatoes.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which the potatoes gradually absorb for a creamy texture.
Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish, soaking up the sauce to become soft and creamy.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Cook the potatoes gently until they absorb most of the milk. Low heat and occasional stirring keep the sauce from scorching on the bottom while the starch in the potatoes and flour thickens the liquid into a creamy mixture rather than a dry or burnt one.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, potato, bread, cheese):

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

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