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Potato Pudding

A baked dish of mashed potatoes layered with sliced beef or mutton and covered with a butter‑egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Potato Pudding

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes until dry and floury.

  2. Mix in the clarified butter, beaten eggs, milk, salt, and pepper to form a batter.

Assemble

  1. Butter a baking dish generously and pour half of the batter into it.

  2. Layer the meat slices on top of the batter.

  3. Pour the remaining batter over the meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  2. Serve hot with brown sauce.

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 + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the pudding batter when mashed dry and floury.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it bakes.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding tender.
Milk
Loosens the mashed potato into a pourable batter and adds moisture.
Beef or mutton
Forms the savoury meat layer that is baked within the batter.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes until dry and floury. Wet or waxy potatoes make a heavy, gummy batter. Drying them out first lets the batter absorb the eggs and milk evenly and bake to a light, set texture.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, pepper, beef. 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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