Skip to main content
Main

Savory Potatoes

Savory potatoes stuffed with ham, chicken, butter, and milk, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Savory Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the potatoes at 400°F (200°C) until tender.

  2. Cut them in half lengthwise and scoop out the pulp without damaging the skins.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the ham, chicken, and a little milk with the potato pulp, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Fill the potato skins with the mixture.

  3. Bake the filled skins in the oven for 15 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that holds the filling and becomes fluffy when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and softening the mashed potato filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the filling.
Chicken
Adds savoury flavour and protein-based texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Scooping the pulp without damaging the skins. The skins act as edible containers, so tearing them lets the filling leak out during the second bake. Letting the potatoes cool slightly before cutting makes the flesh easier to scoop cleanly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, chicken, butter, milk, 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes