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 ↓
Potato Flour
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Grate the raw potatoes in cold water to collect starch.
Agitate the mixture to separate the starch.
Make the mixture
Mix the collected starch with the boiled potatoes.
Boil the mixture with milk and a little sugar until well combined.
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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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
What each ingredient does
- Raw potatoes
- Supply the starch that is collected by grating and washing in cold water.
- Boiled potatoes
- Add soft, moist starchy bulk that blends with the collected starch.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness to the mixture as it boils.
- Sugar
- Adds a little sweetness to the mixture.
The step that matters
Agitating to separate the starch. Starch must be loosened from the grated potato pulp so it settles and can be collected cleanly. If the mixture is not agitated enough, less starch separates and the final product is weaker in texture.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar):
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Arrowrootfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. 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.
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