Name: Roast Potatoes
Ingredients: Potatoes; Butter

Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roast Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Potatoes
Butter

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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Roast and finish

Roast the potatoes in the oven until soft.
Cut a piece nearly off the top of each potato.
Thrust a thin-bladed knife into the heart of each potato and slip in a bit of butter.
Replace the skin and serve hot.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the starchy flesh that softens into a soft, fluffy interior when roasted.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the hot interior of the potato for flavor and moisture.

“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.