Name: French Fried Potatoes and Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: ½ potato; cold water; 1 cup tomato; seasonings; flour; water

Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Fried Potatoes and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and peel half a potato, then cut it into quarters lengthwise.
Soak the potato pieces in a bowl of cold water.
In a saucepan, measure the tomato and seasonings, then heat to boiling point and boil for 5 minutes.
Dry the potatoes by placing them on a towel.
Fry the potatoes by placing them on a wire beater and dropping them into hot fat.
Measure flour and water into a saucer, beat until smooth, and add more cold water to make it thin enough to pour.
Strain the tomato and seasonings into a bowl, return to the saucepan, and add the flour mixture, stirring until thickened, about 5 minutes.
Season to taste and pour around the cutlets.

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.

Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,065 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).