Name: A Tasty Dish
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon codfish; 2 cups cold mashed potatoes; 1 pint sweet milk; 2 eggs; 1 tablespoon butter; pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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

Soak the codfish in lukewarm water.

Mix and bake

In a bowl, mix the cold mashed potatoes with sweet milk, eggs, butter, pepper, and salt.
Add the soaked codfish and mix well.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding dish.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.
Serve hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together81,222 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,303 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,445 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together118,511 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish: Provides the salty, savory flavor that defines the dish.
Cold mashed potatoes: Form the body of the bake, giving it a soft, starchy texture.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and softness to the mashed potato base.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

Flavor stand-ins for the potato

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

Potatothe original
Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.