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Stuffed Potatoes

Potatoes are baked, scooped, mashed with cream, salt, pepper, and returned to skins, topped with cheese or meringue, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the large potatoes until done.

  2. Cut each potato in half lengthwise and remove the inside, leaving the skin smooth.

Fill and brown

  1. Mash the potato and mix with salt, pepper, and cream until light.

  2. Fill the potato skins with the mixture.

  3. Top with grated cheese or meringue.

  4. Return to the oven to 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Large potatoes
Provide the fluffy flesh for the filling and the skins that hold it.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the mashed potato light and smooth.
Grated cheese or meringue
Forms a topping that sets and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Returning the filled potatoes to the oven to brown. Cheese and meringue can move from golden to burnt quickly, since browning comes from sugars and proteins reacting at high heat. Watch them closely and remove the potatoes as soon as the top is evenly colored.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, cheese. 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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