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Stewed Potatoes

A simple stewed potato dish with milk, butter, flour, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut large potatoes in halves or quarters and soak them in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the potatoes in a pot and cover with cold water.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook until nearly done.

  2. Drain off all the water except for ½ cup.

  3. Add ½ cup of milk and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of flour mixed with a little cold milk.

  6. Add a handful of chopped parsley for flavor.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce that coats the potatoes.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce with the reserved potato cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour mixture before boiling. Flour must be whisked smoothly into cold milk first, then stirred into the hot liquid, so it dissolves without lumps and thickens evenly as it heats.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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