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 ↓
To Boil Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes
Pare the potatoes. Cover the potatoes with cold water. Boil the potatoes slowly until tender, watching carefully to avoid overcooking. Drain the water completely.
Dry and season
Sprinkle salt over the potatoes. Leave the saucepan uncovered by the fire. Shake the saucepan every minute or two until the potatoes are dry and floury.
Boil the new potatoes
Rub off the skins of new potatoes. Wash the new potatoes. Place the new potatoes in boiling water without salt. Boil the new potatoes softly until tender. Drain the water from the new potatoes.
Season and serve
Sprinkle fine salt over the new potatoes and shake the saucepan. Let the potatoes stand by the fire for a minute before serving. Add a small slice of fresh butter with the salt. Toss gently after the butter melts.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Potatoes
- Their starch turns floury as surface moisture evaporates, giving a dry, fluffy texture.
- Fresh butter
- Melts over the hot potatoes to add richness and a glossy coating.
The step that matters
Boil slowly and watch for tenderness. Potatoes boiled too hard or too long swell and their outer layers break apart, leaving them waterlogged. Gentle boiling and testing for tenderness keeps them whole and dry.
“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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