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Dessert

White Potato Custard

A custard made with grated potatoes, milk, eggs, sugar, and spices, baked in a pastry-lined pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

White Potato Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Grate the potatoes into a quart of milk.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and add to the milk and potatoes.

  3. Stir in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice and rind if using.

  4. Mix thoroughly and pour into deep pans lined with pastry.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  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
Grated potato thickens the milk mixture and gives the custard its body as it bakes.
Eggs
Eggs set as they bake, firming the custard so it holds a sliced shape.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base that the eggs and grated potato set within.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps keep the custard tender.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly and pour into deep pans. Grated potato settles quickly, so the mixture must be evenly combined before pouring. Otherwise the custard bakes unevenly, with dense potato in some areas and loose liquid in others.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, lemon):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, lemon. 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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