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New Potatoes in Butter

Boiled new potatoes cooked in butter and seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

New Potatoes in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Rub off the skins and wash the potatoes well.

  2. Wipe the potatoes dry.

Cook

  1. Place the potatoes in a well-seasoned saucepan with 3 ounces of butter for a small dish, or 4 ounces for a large one.

  2. Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes.

  3. Keep the potatoes gently shaken or tossed to ensure even cooking.

  4. Add salt when they begin to simmer.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

New potatoes
Form the starchy body of the dish, softening into a tender, creamy texture as they simmer.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and coating the potatoes as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmer over low heat. Butter solids can brown and burn at high heat, and vigorous cooking can break the potatoes apart or cook them unevenly. Gentle heat and occasional tossing keep them whole and evenly tender.

“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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