Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Potato Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the starter
Boil, steam, and mash a few potatoes.
Pour slowly on some boiling water in which a bag of hops has been boiled.
Stir in enough sifted flour to thicken.
Add the yeast
When lukewarm, add dissolved compressed yeast or raise with potato or baker's yeast.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch that thickens the mixture and gives the starter body and moisture.
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the starter.
- Sifted flour
- Thickens the mixture and supplies starch for the yeast to feed on.
- Compressed yeast
- Ferments the starter, producing carbon dioxide that makes the dough rise.
The step that matters
Add the yeast when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to a hot mixture can stop fermentation. Waiting until the mixture is lukewarm lets the yeast stay alive and work.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour):
- Mustardfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour. 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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