Name: Bread
Ingredients: 1 quart buttermilk; ½ cup sugar; 1 tablespoon salt; 1 small cup mashed potatoes; 1 yeast cake; flour (as needed); 1 pint warm water

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the buttermilk and, while hot, add the sugar, salt, and mashed potatoes.
When cool, add the yeast previously soaked in warm water.
Let the mixture stand for 12 to 18 hours before using.
Stir in flour to make a thin batter and let it rise.
If more bread is desired, add some water and salt.
Let it rise once or twice, ensuring to work the dough well.

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.

Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + potatotop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together153 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).