Name: Potato Stuffing
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon sage; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup mashed potatoes; 1 tablespoon chopped onion; 1 tablespoon chopped sour apples

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, sage, salt, chopped onion, and chopped sour apples.
Mix well until all ingredients are evenly incorporated.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together386 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).