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Potato Surprise

A potato stuffed with minced mutton, baked or roasted, served with hot gravy.

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 ↓

Potato Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scoop out the inside of the potato, leaving the skin attached on one side as a lid.

  2. Mince the mutton chop finely and season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the potato with the minced meat and pin down the lid.

  2. Bake or roast the potato until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add a little hot gravy if the filling seems too dry.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Potato + muttontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Its scooped-out shell holds the filling and forms the edible case as it cooks.
Mutton chop
Provides the savoury meat filling that fills the potato and gives it its main flavour.
Hot gravy
Adds moisture to the filling just before serving if it has dried out.

The step that matters

Fill and pin down the lid. The lid should be sealed snugly over the minced meat so the filling stays moist and does not dry out or escape during roasting.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper. 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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