Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and mash the potatoes finely, then strain through a colander.
Boil the hops in water until you have 1 quart of hop-water; add clear water if needed.
Make the yeast
In a large bowl, combine the potato water, hop-water, and sugar.
When warm, add the yeast and let it stand until light and foamy.
Stir in the coarse sea salt, then transfer to a jug and cork tightly.
Use
Use 1 teacup of this yeast for every 4 loaves of bread.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,978 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Egg + hopstop 42% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch that feeds the yeast and gives the mixture body.
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the liquid.
- Sugar
- Provides quick food for the yeast so it becomes active and foamy.
- Baker’s yeast
- Ferments the sugars and starches, producing gas that makes bread rise.
The step that matters
Letting the yeast stand until foamy. If the liquid is too hot, it will kill the yeast; if too cool, fermentation is slow. Warm liquid, not hot, lets the yeast wake and multiply before the salt and corking.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, hops, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Cucumberfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, hops, sugar. 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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