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Potato Bread

A boiled potato dish served hot, optionally fried or baked, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Bread

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Boil

  1. Place potatoes in cold water.

  2. Cut a slice off the rose-end to improve mealiness.

  3. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  4. Add ½ cup of cold water a few minutes before they are done.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Return the pot to the heat to dry the potatoes for a few minutes.

  7. Sprinkle the potatoes with coarse sea salt.

Serve and use leftovers

  1. Serve hot.

  2. For leftovers, peel warm potatoes and set aside for breakfast.

Fry or bake

  1. Slice and fry the potatoes with pepper and salt.

  2. Place whole potatoes in the oven with butter until browned.

  3. Alternatively, fry in a pan with butter, pepper, salt, and chopped onion, stirring constantly until nicely browned.

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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy body of the bread, becoming mealy when cooked and dried.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor in the frying or baking.
Chopped onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and browns with the potatoes.

The step that matters

Drying the potatoes after draining. Returning the drained potatoes to the heat evaporates surface water, so they turn mealy rather than wet and gummy and brown better when fried.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper. 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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