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Potato Batter Pudding

A baked pudding of mashed potatoes, mutton, eggs, flour, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Batter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mince and season the cold mutton, then wet it with the gravy and place it in a bake dish.

Make the batter

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes with the butter until smooth.

  2. Beat in the eggs, flour, and milk until well combined.

  3. Pour the potato mixture over the mutton.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Mashed to form the soft, smooth body of the topping.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it bakes.
Prepared flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together after baking.
Milk
Moistens the batter so it bakes tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer texture and browning.
Cold mutton
Provides the savory meat base beneath the potato batter.

The step that matters

Baking until golden brown. The batter must set fully in the centre while the top browns. Underbaking leaves it wet and loose, and overbaking dries the potato and eggs. Watch for a firm centre and a golden surface.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, egg, flour, milk):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, egg, flour, milk. 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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