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Stewed Potatoes

A creamy stew of potatoes, milk, butter, flour, and egg, seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and wash the potatoes, then cut them into sixteenths if very large.

  2. Soak the potatoes in cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water; boil gently until tender.

  4. Drain nearly all the water from the potatoes.

Make the stew

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with cold milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the milk to the potatoes and heat until boiling, shaking to prevent scorching.

  3. Stir in the flour mixture, beaten egg, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil again 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  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
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, starchy base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce that coats the potatoes.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, forming the body of the sauce.
Egg
Enriches the stew and helps bind and thicken it when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer flavour and smoother texture.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste and egg to the hot potatoes. Flour mixed with cold milk stays smooth, but the egg can curdle or scramble if it boils hard. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper. 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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