Name: Creamed Potatoes Axd Cottage Cheese
Ingredients: cold diced or sliced potatoes; medium white sauce; cottage cheese; 1 slice of onion; chopped parsley; pimientos

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 ↓

Creamed Potatoes Axd Cottage Cheese

½ cup potatoes and ⅓ cup sauce for a generous serving

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and season

Reheat the cold diced or sliced potatoes in a medium white sauce with cottage cheese.
Add a slice of onion to the milk while heating to make the sauce.
Season the sauce with chopped parsley and pimientos.

Serve

Use ½ cup of potatoes and ⅓ cup of sauce for a generous serving.
Boiled new potatoes can be served whole with this sauce.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cottage cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).
Potato + cottage cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the bulk and soft body of the dish as they absorb the sauce.
White sauce: Supplies creamy moisture that coats the potatoes and binds the dish together.
Cottage cheese: Adds richness and a mild tang to the sauce.
Onion: Adds a subtle aromatic background flavor to the sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sauce, cottage cheese, onion):

Garlicfits better
Dillfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sauce, cottage cheese, onion. 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.