Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Potato Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the potatoes
Boil the potatoes until soft and pass them through a coarse sieve.
Make the batter
Cream the sugar and butter together until smooth.
Beat the eggs and add them to the sugar and butter mixture.
Stir in the brandy, wine, rose-water, and allspice.
Mix well with the potatoes, beating hard.
Bake
Bake in a greased pan without a crust at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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.
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Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + allspicetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together298 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Rose + allspicetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together102 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Provide the bulk and a dense, moist body to the pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the texture when creamed with butter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving the pudding its structure.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavour depth to the pudding.
The step that matters
Mix well with the potatoes, beating hard. Beating the sieved potatoes into the batter must be thorough so no lumps remain and the mixture bakes evenly. Overbeating after the eggs are in can, however, make the set pudding tough and dense.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, brandy, wine, rose, allspice):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Shallotfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, brandy, wine, rose, allspice. 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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