Name: Potato Cakes
Ingredients: cold mashed potatoes; 1 egg yolk; 1 tablespoon hot ham or beef drippings

Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

Ingredients

cold mashed potatoes
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon hot ham or beef drippings

Directions

Mix cold mashed potatoes with the beaten egg yolk.
Shape the mixture into cakes like sausages.
Heat the drippings in a skillet.
Place the cakes in the skillet, cover tightly, and cook for 5 minutes until the bottom is browned.
Turn the cakes, remove the cover, and fry until the other side is nicely browned.
Serve hot.

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.

Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + hamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together127 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).