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Potato Pears

Baked potato shapes resembling pears, seasoned with butter, cream, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potato Pears

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.

Make the potato mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes until well done.

  2. Mash the potatoes thoroughly.

  3. Add butter, cream, pepper, and salt to the mashed potatoes.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould the mixture into the shape of pears.

  2. Insert a clove into the stem of each pear.

  3. Brush the pears with beaten egg.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until slightly browned.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the main body of the pears, providing starch that becomes soft and mouldable when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing smoothness and flavour to the mashed potato.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the mashed potato smooth and easy to shape.
Egg
Brushed on the surface, it promotes browning and a glossy finish when baked.

The step that matters

Brush the pears with beaten egg. The egg coating is what gives the surface its golden colour and sheen in the oven. Brushing evenly prevents pale patches and helps the shaped pears keep their form while baking.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream, pepper, egg. 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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