Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Potato Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Boil the potatoes, peel them, and mash them.
Immediately stir in enough ice water to cool the mashed potatoes.
Dissolve the yeast in some cold water and stir it in.
Add the sifted flour and enough ice water to make a thin mixture.
Rest and use
Set the mixture away in the refrigerator.
It will be ready to use in twelve hours.
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.
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Provide starch and moisture that give the dough a soft, tender crumb.
- Compressed yeast
- Produces gas through fermentation, which leavens the dough and helps it rise.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
The step that matters
Cooling the mashed potatoes with ice water right away. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mashed potatoes must be cooled quickly before the yeast is added. Cooling promptly protects the yeast so it can ferment during the long rest.
“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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