Name: Potato Cake
Ingredients: potatoes; 2 beaten egg yolks; egg whites for glazing

Why it works: Potato and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,978 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

potatoes
2 beaten egg yolks
egg whites for glazing

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Mash the potatoes as you would for potato balls.
Add the yolks of two beaten eggs to the mashed potatoes.
Place the mixture into a tin.
Glaze the top with the egg whites.

Bake

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 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.

Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the main bulk; their starch gives the mashed mixture body and structure.
Egg yolks: Bind the mashed potato and add richness, helping the cake hold its shape when baked.
Egg whites: Brush on top, where they set and brown in the oven to give a glossy, golden crust.

“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.