Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Roman War Bread
two loaves of bread and a pan of biscuitsIngredients
Directions
Mix and rise overnight
Put two cups of Roman meal, one cup of graham meal, one-half cup of white flour and two teaspoonfuls of salt in a mixing bowl.
Pour over it two cups of scalded milk, or half a potato, or rice water, hot.
Add one yeast cake that has been dissolved in a half cup of lukewarm water. Beat thoroughly for a few minutes.
Put in a warm place to rise overnight.
Knead and shape
In the morning add enough white flour to knead.
After thorough kneading, set to rise well covered until double the bulk.
Make into loaves, let rise again until twice the size.
Bake
Bake for one hour.
This amount will make two loaves of bread and a pan of biscuits.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Potato | 1 medium (173g) baked | 161 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
| Cake | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
-
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together434 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Roman meal
- Provides the coarse whole-grain base that gives the bread its hearty body and texture.
- Graham meal
- Adds coarse bran and wheat flavour, giving a denser, nuttier crumb.
- White flour
- Supplies gluten-forming protein so the dough can stretch and hold its rise.
- Yeast cake
- Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and gives it a yeasty flavour.
The step that matters
Kneading after the overnight rise. Kneading in the added white flour develops gluten so the dough holds the gas from yeast; too much flour makes the loaves dry and dense.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, bread):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Shallotfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, bread. 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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