Name: Crullers and Doughnuts
Ingredients: 2 to 3 pounds lard or beef suet; raw potato (for testing fat); eggs

Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Crullers and Doughnuts

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds lard or beef suet
raw potato (for testing fat)
eggs

Directions

Heat the lard or beef suet in a deep kettle until it simmers.
Test the fat by dropping in a piece of bread; if it browns quickly, it's ready.
Make the dough as soft as possible to handle.
Fry the doughnuts for about 8 minutes, watching closely.
Drain the cooked doughnuts in a skimmer and place them in a colander or on thick paper.
To clarify used fat, add sliced raw potato and let it settle before straining into a jar.

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.

Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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