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Grated Potato Yeast

A yeast bread made with grated potatoes, flour, milk, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Grated Potato Yeast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the potato yeast

  1. Grate the potatoes into a saucepan and pour boiling water over them, beating rapidly.

  2. Add sugar and salt, then boil together.

  3. Add the moistened yeast and cover.

  4. Set in a warm place to raise.

  5. To make fresh yeast, repeat using 1 cup of the old yeast instead of the yeast cake.

  6. If the old yeast smells sour, add a pinch of baking soda.

Mix and raise the dough

  1. Sift flour, salt, and sugar into a bread pan.

  2. Mix hot water with milk until lukewarm.

  3. Add potato yeast and stir into the sifted flour.

  4. Stir in more flour until kneadable.

  5. Knead on a floured surface until it doesn't stick.

  6. Form the dough into a round loaf.

  7. Place it back in the bread pan.

  8. Cover with a pan and let it raise overnight until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, turn the dough onto a floured board and knead for 4-5 minutes.

  2. Form into 3 loaves.

  3. Place in a greased baking pan.

  4. Rub the tops and sides with melted lard to prevent sticking and create a soft crust.

  5. Cover with a cloth and let raise in a warm place until doubled, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Add starch and moisture that help the bread stay soft and hold water.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
All-purpose flour
Forms gluten when kneaded, giving the dough structure to hold its risen shape.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.
Milk
Adds fat and sugars that soften the crumb and brown the crust.
Lard
Coats the surface to keep the dough from sticking and softens the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time and warmth to build gas bubbles. Rising too short leaves dense bread, while rising too long can weaken the gluten so the loaves collapse or lose structure.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk. 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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