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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes simmered in cream, butter, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes until tender, then cut into marbles or dice.

  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the potatoes and let sit for half an hour.

Make the creamed potatoes

  1. In a saucepan, heat the cream and butter until bubbling.

  2. Add the potatoes to the bubbling cream and let boil gently.

  3. Mix the flour with a little butter and add it to the saucepan 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the bulk of the dish, staying firm and tender in the cream.
Rich sweet cream
Provides the liquid base and richness that coat the potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the cream and enriches the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it heats.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture. Flour must be mixed with butter first so it disperses without lumps. Added to hot cream, it thickens the sauce evenly as it cooks.

Swap the potato

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

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

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