Name: Potato Puff
Ingredients: 1 pint mashed potatoes; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon celery salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped; 2 eggs; ½ cup milk

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Puff

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

Combine mashed potatoes, salt, pepper, celery salt, butter, parsley, and milk in a bowl.
Beat the eggs separately; add the yolks to the potato mixture and fold in the egg whites.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

Bake until puffed and brown, about 20-25 minutes.
Serve immediately.

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.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Whites trapped air and yolks enrich the mixture, letting it puff and set as it bakes.
Mashed potatoes: Provide the bulk and soft, moist body that the puff holds together around.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and helping the top brown.
Milk: Adds moisture that loosens the potatoes so the mixture can rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites intact; deflating them makes the puff rise less and turn dense.

Swap the celery

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

Dillfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegfits better
Celerythe original

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