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Potato Puree

A creamy potato dish made with milk, onion, celery, butter, flour, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the potato base

  1. Boil the onion, bay leaf, and celery in the milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the peeled, boiled, and mashed potatoes, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then gradually add the flour, stirring until smooth.

  4. Slowly pour the butter and flour mixture into the hot milk and potato mixture.

  5. Boil for a few minutes, then add seasoning and thin with hot milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the beaten eggs and whipped cream.

  2. Strain through a fine wire strainer into a hot soup tureen and serve.

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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into mashed body, giving the puree its thick, smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the potatoes are cooked and mashed into.
Flour
Thickens the mixture with butter, helping it hold a smooth, body-rich consistency.
Eggs
Add richness and help set and thicken the puree when stirred in at the end.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a silky, smooth mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and combines with flour to form a thickening roux.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs and whipped cream. Eggs thicken when heated, so adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them. Stirring them in just before serving, off a hard boil, keeps the puree smooth and silky.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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