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Breakfast Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes flavored with salt, cream or milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Breakfast Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the potatoes.

  2. Place the potatoes in a pot with just enough water to cover the bottom.

  3. Add salt to taste.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the water evaporates and the potatoes are tender.

  2. Stir in a little cream or milk and a bit of butter before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the dish's main body, becoming tender and soft as they cook through.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the potatoes and giving a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, giving a rich taste and smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook until the water evaporates. Cooking with only a little water lets the potatoes steam until tender, then the remaining liquid must boil off. If the pot is left too long, the potatoes can scorch on the bottom, so stirring occasionally helps them cook evenly.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter. 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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