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New Potatoes

A stew of new potatoes with mutton or beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, and ale, served with gravy or ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean new potatoes by rubbing them with a coarse cloth or scrubbing brush.

  2. Prepare sauce with butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Prepare sauce with gravy.

  4. Prepare sauce with melted butter and ketchup.

Make the stew

  1. Layer sliced mutton or beef in a stew pan.

  2. Add potatoes to the stew pan.

  3. Layer potatoes with seasoning and water.

  4. Stew potatoes in ale or water seasoned with pepper and salt.

  5. Add spices to the stew pan.

  6. Cover the stew pan.

  7. Stew slowly.

Bake

  1. Bake potatoes with herrings or sprats.

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

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 stew and soften into a tender, starchy texture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, savoury fat to the sauce.
Mutton or beef
Contributes savoury meaty flavour to the stew as it cooks slowly.
Ale
Adds a malty, slightly bitter liquid that flavours the potatoes as they stew.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, ketchup, vinegar, mutton. 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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