Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Wash the potatoes thoroughly and dry them.
Prick the potatoes with a fork to allow steam to escape.
Place the potatoes directly on the oven rack.
Bake and serve
Bake for 45-60 minutes until tender.
Remove from the oven and add a little coarse sea salt, butter, or cream before serving.
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 + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch cooks into a soft, fluffy interior while the skin dries and crisps.
- Butter or cream
- Adds fat and richness that carry flavor and make the fluffy interior taste creamy.
The step that matters
Prick the potatoes before baking. Water inside the potato turns to steam as it heats. Without small vents from a fork, that pressure can build up and make the potato burst or split in the oven. Pricking lets steam escape gradually, keeping the potato intact.
“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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