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Potato Pudding

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with milk, flour, onions, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mash the cold potatoes well with a fork.

  2. Moisten the mashed potatoes with milk.

  3. Add flour, minced onions, and grease to the potatoes. Mix until well combined.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until brown, about 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the pudding and give it a soft, starchy body.
Milk
Moistens the potatoes so the mixture binds and stays tender in the oven.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the mixture hold together as it bakes.
Grease
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Minced onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. The surface needs enough time in a hot oven for browning, which develops savory flavor. Pulling it too early leaves it pale and under-flavored, while overbaking can dry the potatoes out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, flour, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, flour, butter. 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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