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Hashed Potatoes, with Cream

A dish of sliced boiled potatoes cooked with cream, butter, and seasonings, garnished with parsley.

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

Hashed Potatoes, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thinly slice the boiled potatoes and cut them into small squares.

  2. Place the potatoes in a saucepan with the cream.

Cook and finish

  1. Heat over a brisk fire until the moisture is half reduced.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg if desired.

  3. Add the butter and toss well off the fire until melted.

  4. Serve garnished with finely chopped parsley.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the cream as they cook down.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, thickening as it reduces around the potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, glossy finish when tossed in off the heat.

The step that matters

Heat over a brisk fire until the moisture is half reduced. Reducing the cream concentrates it and thickens it so it coats the potatoes. If the heat is too low the cream stays thin and watery, and if it is left too long the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

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