Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Potato Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes until dry, then squeeze them in a coarse cloth.
Place the potatoes in a marble mortar and let them cool until milk-warm.
Add the washed butter and beat until perfectly light.
Combine the potato mixture with the beaten eggs and sugar, then strain through a fine sieve.
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.
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 + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Potato + macetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together288 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sugar, butter, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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