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Potatoes

Potatoes boiled in butter, salted, and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose new potatoes of similar size, wash, and dry them.

Cook in butter

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over heat until boiling.

  2. Add the potatoes to the boiling butter and toss occasionally until done.

  3. Check doneness with a fork; remove before they lose crispness.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle with salt and garnish with parsley after boiling briefly in the butter.

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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Cooks the potatoes in a fat, adding richness and flavour while the butter boils.
New potatoes
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through in the hot butter.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a fork. Potatoes keep cooking after they are removed from heat, and overcooking softens the surface and loses the crisp edges. Testing with a fork lets the cook pull them at the right moment.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato. 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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