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Potato Puff

A baked potato and egg mixture, optionally with meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Potato Puff

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Make 1 pint of cold mashed potatoes and ensure they are quite moist with milk.

  2. Beat the yolks and whites of 2 eggs separately.

  3. Stir the yolks and salt into the potatoes.

  4. If desired, add finely chopped cooked meat before folding in the egg whites.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

  2. Turn the mixture into a shallow oiled baking dish.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 5 to 10 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. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the potatoes, while whipped whites lighten the mixture and help it puff.
Cold mashed potatoes
Form the body of the puff, and their moisture keeps the mixture soft inside.
Milk
Adds moisture so the potatoes stay soft and spreadable when mixed with the eggs.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Folding gently keeps the whipped whites' air in the mixture; stirring or deflating them makes the puff rise less and turn dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, meat. 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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