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Potatoes with Milk

A creamy potato dish simmered in milk, butter, and flour, finished with eggs and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potatoes with Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Let the potatoes cool slightly.

  3. Slice the potatoes.

  4. Cover the sliced potatoes with a clean cloth.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon.

  3. Gradually add the warm milk, seasoning with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Bring the sauce to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the sliced potatoes to the sauce.

  2. Let them gently boil for about 15 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with the remaining milk.

  4. Pour this mixture into the saucepan.

  5. Stir until thickened.

  6. Serve the dish hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, absorbing the sauce and giving it body when sliced and simmered.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the sauce, carrying flavor and giving a rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the milk sauce its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which thickens as the starch gelatinizes during heating.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and further thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture gently and keep the heat low. Egg yolks can curdle or turn grainy if they overheat. Adding them to a hot sauce and stirring steadily, without boiling, lets them thicken smoothly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, cream, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg. 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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