Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Breakfast
Ingredients
Directions
Serve fresh fruit.
Prepare granula with cream and sugar.
Cook calves' liver and bacon until done.
Fry potato croquettes until golden.
Toast whole wheat muffins.
Brew coffee.
Make deviled eggs.
Prepare French toast.
Shred oranges for serving.
Serve angel food cake.
Brew tea.
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 + wheattop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together235 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Cream + french toasttop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + french toasttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together32 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Potato + coffeetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together167 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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 (cream, sugar, liver, wheat, coffee, egg, french toast):
- Potatothe original
- Spinachfits about as well
- Capsicumfits less well
- Asparagusfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, liver, wheat, coffee, egg, french toast. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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