Name: Stuffed Potatoes
Ingredients: large, smooth potatoes; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; milk or cream; 1 egg for every 6 potatoes

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 ↓

Stuffed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Bake the potatoes until done, then cut a round piece from the top of each.
Carefully remove the inside of the potatoes, keeping the skins intact.
Mash the potato insides and season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Moisten the mixture with milk or cream and heat in a saucepan.
Once hot, stir in a well-beaten egg for every six potatoes.
Fill the potato skins with the mixture, replace the tops, and return to the oven for a few minutes.
Serve hot, covered with a napkin.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).