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Potato Puree

A smooth potato puree made with stock, milk, butter, and optional tapioca or cream, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes, then weigh them.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the potatoes and sliced onions.

  3. Sweat the mixture over low heat for 5 minutes without browning.

  4. Heat the stock and pour it over the potatoes, reserving ½ pint to help pass the potatoes through a sieve.

Make the puree

  1. Boil the potatoes until soft, then rub them through a fine sieve.

  2. Return the puree to a clean saucepan, add the milk, salt, and stir until hot.

  3. If the puree is too thin, sprinkle in the crushed tapioca and stir until clear.

  4. For a richer puree, add the cream just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down when cooked and rubbed through a sieve, giving the puree its body.
White stock
Adds savoury flavour and liquid that loosens the potatoes into a smooth purée.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, softening the texture of the finished puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flavour of the onion during the initial sweating.
Spanish onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savoury depth once softened in butter.
Crushed tapioca
Starch that thickens the puree when stirred in, adjusting its consistency.

The step that matters

Sweating the potatoes and onion without browning. Cooking gently in butter softens the vegetables and releases their flavour. Browning would add bitter, toasted notes and change the clean colour and taste of a white puree.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, onion, butter, cream, bread. 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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