Name: Stewed Potatoes
Ingredients: 2 pounds potatoes; ½ tablespoon flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 1 teacup (about ⅔ cup) milk

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the potatoes until tender.
Cut them into thick slices.

Stew

In a saucepan, combine flour, salt, butter, parsley, and milk.
Add the potato slices and let them stew for about 20 minutes.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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, becoming tender and soft as they cook in the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the milk and butter into a light sauce that clings to the potatoes.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, helping carry flavour and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess as it simmers with the flour.