Name: Holiday Goods of All Kinds At Auction Prices
Ingredients: 2 cupfuls of cold mashed potato; a cupful of hot cream; a pinch of pepper; a teaspoonful of wine; 63 preparing frogs; 65 memoranda; 67 vegetables; five mintues to half an hour; 6 potatoes; 69 potato puff; 6 tea- spoonfuls of melted cottolene; 2 eggs whipped very light; 1 teacupful of cream; 6 good-sized potatoes; 1 tablespoon- ful of butter; 2 eggs well beaten; salt; pepper

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potato: Forms the bulk of the puff and gives it its soft, starchy body.
Eggs: Whipped eggs add lightness and help the puff set as it bakes.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the interior tender.
Cottolene: Adds fat that enriches the texture and helps the mixture brown.

The step that matters

Beating the potato and cottolene to a white cream. Beating the fat into the potato before adding anything else spreads it evenly, so the mixture stays smooth and the eggs can then fold in to give an even, light rise.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, wine, tea, egg, butter):

Potatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits less well
Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, wine, tea, egg, butter. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Mashed Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Vegetable	1 tbsp (14g)	120
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Holiday Goods of All Kinds At Auction Prices