Name: Yeast That Will Hot Sour
Ingredients: 2 ounces hops; 2 quarts water; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup flour; 6 potatoes; 1 cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Yeast That Will Hot Sour

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the hops in the water for 10 minutes.
Strain the hops and pour the liquid into a jar with brown sugar.
Stir in the flour until smooth.
Let the mixture stand in a warm place until it ferments.
Add the boiled and mashed potatoes and the coarse sea salt.
Mix well and let it sit until bubbly.

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + potatotop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Hops + potatotop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).