Why it works: Potato and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,445 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: salmon
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.
Cut cold mashed potatoes into rounds or squares using a cake cutter.
Flour the cut potatoes well.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, buttering them as they begin to brown.
If the potatoes are too soft to cut, press firmly into the cutter that has been wet with cold water.
Serve with salmon.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together6,445 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + flourtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together5,160 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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