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Potato Cobbler

A baked dish of diced potatoes mixed with egg, flour, water, suet, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Cobbler

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the diced potatoes, egg, flour, water, and chopped suet. Season with salt and pepper, and stir well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 2 hours until brown.

  2. Cover and continue baking slowly until fully cooked.

  3. Turn out of the baking dish and serve.

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.

  1. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, starchy base as they cook.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when turned out.
Flour
Thickens the moisture from the potatoes and water into a cohesive filling.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the flavor and keeps the potatoes moist as they bake.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the final bake. Covering traps steam so the potatoes cook through gently without drying out or scorching on top before the centre is tender.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, pepper. 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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