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Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes are potatoes baked in an oven, served with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the potatoes and place them in a baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  2. Break open the potatoes before serving.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add a good-sized piece of butter to each half.

  4. Serve immediately with plenty of butter.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy flesh that cooks soft and fluffy in the dry oven heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts into the hot potato flesh.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done. Potatoes are done when the flesh is soft all the way through, which takes sustained dry heat. Undercooked centers stay dense and grainy, so test with a fork or knife before serving.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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