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Stuffed Potatoes

Potatoes are baked, scooped, mashed with butter, milk, salt, pepper, and beaten egg whites, then refilled and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the potatoes.

  2. Cut the baked potatoes in halves.

  3. Scoop out the insides into a hot bowl.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the potato and add butter, hot milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Mix the stiff egg whites with the potato mixture.

Fill and brown

  1. Fill the potato skins with the mixture, heaping it slightly on top.

  2. Brown the filled potatoes slightly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 mashes into a soft, fluffy filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the mashed potato smoother and more flavorful.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and keeps the mashed potato soft and easy to spread.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they lighten the filling and help it hold its heaped shape.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites trap air when whipped, giving the filling lightness. Under-whipped whites collapse and make the filling dense, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy and separate.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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