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Stuffed Potatoes

Stuffed potatoes are baked potato halves filled with mashed potato mixture and baked again.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stuffed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the potatoes until done.

  2. Cut the potatoes in half.

  3. Scoop out the potato into a bowl, leaving enough in the skins to keep their shape.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the potato finely.

  2. Add the butter, hot milk, salt, and pepper.

  3. Beat until very light.

  4. Carefully stir in the well-beaten egg whites.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the potato skins with the mixture, heaping them up.

  2. Brush the tops with the egg yolk.

  3. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

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

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 filling and the shell that holds it.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mashed potato's texture.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and keeps the mashed potato smooth and fluffy.
Eggs
Whites trap air for lightness, while the yolk brushed on top promotes browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that lightens the filling and helps it rise in the oven. Stirring too vigorously deflates that foam, leaving the filling dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, 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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