Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
- Glaze
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Wash the potatoes.
Boil them with the skin in salted water.
Let them cool.
Shape them into large corks.
Slice them thickly.
Make the sauce and serve
Prepare a butter sauce by mixing butter with chopped parsley, pepper, salt, a little glaze, and lemon juice if desired.
Ensure the sauce is well mixed and not too thick or curdled before adding the potatoes.
Gently combine the potatoes with the sauce.
Serve.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,036 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,855 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Potato + peppertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,303 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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, providing starchy body that holds the buttery sauce.
- Butter
- Carries the flavour and gives the sauce its rich, smooth coating.
- Chopped parsley
- Adds fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the rich butter.
- Glaze (in the method)
- Adds concentrated meaty savour and body to the butter sauce.
The step that matters
Keep the butter sauce emulsified before adding the potatoes. Butter is an emulsion of fat and water. If the sauce is too hot or overmixed it can separate or turn greasy and curdled, so it will not cling to the potatoes. Mixing it smooth and not too thick lets it coat them evenly.
“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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