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Potatoes

A boiled potato dish flavored with cream or butter, salt, pepper, and optional flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Peel the potatoes and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the soaked potatoes in salted water until tender.

Finish the potatoes

  1. Drain the water and add cream or butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Dredge in a little flour if desired.

  3. Alternatively, chop cold boiled potatoes and mix with milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that becomes soft and creamy when boiled and mashed.
Cream or butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the potatoes a smooth, silky texture.
Flour
Lightly coats the potatoes, helping thicken the creamy mixture when dredged.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness when potatoes are mixed with it in the alternative method.

The step that matters

Drain the water and add cream or butter. Potatoes should be drained well before the fat is added, because excess water dilutes the cream or butter and makes the mash loose and watery.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, flour, milk. 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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