Name: Buttermilk Bread
Ingredients: 2/3 cup hops (or 10 cents worth of pressed hops); 4 cups sifted flour; 1 large coffee cup brown sugar; ½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 8-10 large potatoes; 1 cup yeast; 1 pint cornmeal; buttermilk (enough to scald the flour)

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk 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 ↓

Buttermilk Bread

Ingredients

2/3 cup hops (or 10 cents worth of pressed hops)
4 cups sifted flour
1 large coffee cup brown sugar
½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
8-10 large potatoes
1 cup yeast
1 pint cornmeal
buttermilk (enough to scald the flour)

Directions

Boil the hops in water for 20 minutes.
Boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them.
Strain the hops and scald the flour with the hop and potato water.
Stir until the mixture is stiff.
Add the yeast and stir down as it rises.
In the evening, mix the yeast with cornmeal in a large pan.
Spread a clean tablecloth in a warm room and scatter the crumbled cornmeal yeast over it.
Use 1 pint of this yeast to make 6 loaves of bread.
Scald the flour with buttermilk, then let it cool.
Add the yeast and set in a warm place to rise.
Once risen, knead the dough and let it rise again.
Place the dough in pans for the final rise.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Coffee + potatotop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour, coffee, sugar, buttermilk):

Mustardfits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well
Lettucefits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, coffee, sugar, buttermilk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.