Name: Potato and Hop Yeast
Ingredients: 6 good-sized potatoes; 1 quart boiling water; a pinch of compressed hops; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 cake of Twin Brothers' yeast or other yeast dissolved in warm water

Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato and Hop Yeast

Ingredients

6 good-sized potatoes
1 quart boiling water
a pinch of compressed hops
2 tablespoons flour
1 cake of Twin Brothers' yeast or other yeast dissolved in warm water

Directions

Cook the potatoes

Boil the potatoes in boiling water until the skins crack, adding the hops tied in a muslin cloth after the potatoes are in.
Mash the potatoes with the skins on.

Make the mixture

Pour the boiled water over the mashed potatoes.
Add 2 tablespoons of flour.
Dissolve a cake of Twin Brothers' yeast in warm water and add it to the mixture.

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.

Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide starch and bulk, giving the bread its body and moisture.
Hops: Add a bitter, aromatic flavour to the bread.
Flour: Adds starch and body to the mixture, helping it hold together.
Yeast: Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing gas that makes the bread rise.