Name: Patent Yeast
Ingredients: 1 pint potatoes; 1 pint water; 1 teacup flour; ½ pint cold water; ½ pint hop tea

Why it works: Potato and tea work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 136 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Patent Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Boil 1 pint of potatoes in 1 pint of water until reduced to 1 teaspoon of water.
Peel the potatoes and mash them with the boiling water.
Mix in 1 teacup of flour until well combined.
Gradually add ½ pint of cold water.
Stir in ½ pint of hop tea and set aside to rise.

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 + teatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + teatop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together449 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).