Why it works: Potato and milk 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 ↓
Bread Directions
Ingredients
Directions
Pare and slice the potatoes, then boil them in 2 quarts of water and mash them in the same water.
Add 1 pint of sweet milk or 1 quart of water to the mashed potatoes while still boiling, then stir in enough flour to make a cream-like batter.
When cooled to milk-warmth, stir in 1 to 2 cakes of Breadmaker’s Yeast dissolved in a little cold water.
Hollow out a space in your flour, pour the mixture into it, cover, and let it rise.
Dissolve 1 tablespoon of salt in 2 quarts of warm water and blend it with the yeast mixture once it has risen.
Combine the mixture with the flour using your fingers, forming a thick creamy batter.
When the sponge is well risen, continue to thicken the mass until you can shape it into an elastic ball of dough.
Lightly shape the dough and drop it into your pans.
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 + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Parsnipfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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