Name: To Make Mixed Bread
Ingredients: 14 pounds barley flour; 14 pounds potato pulp; warm water; yeast; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Barley and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Make Mixed Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare potato pulp by peeling and grating potatoes into a bowl.
Knead the barley flour and potato pulp into a dough with warm water, yeast, and salt.
Let the dough stand until it has risen.
The final dough will weigh approximately 28 pounds.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Barley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together582 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).