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 ↓
Washington Yeast Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the starter
Peel and boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them finely and strain through a colander.
Place the mashed potatoes in a 2-gallon crock, add the flour and salt while still hot, and stir well.
Fill the crock with enough boiling water, then let it cool slightly before adding the yeast cakes.
Allow the mixture to sit in a warm place for one day, or up to two days for better results.
Make the dough
In the morning, take 1 quart of the yeast mixture and 1 quart of water (or 1.5 quarts for a larger batch), and add enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Do not add salt, as there is enough in the yeast.
Set the dough in a warm place to rise until light, then shape into loaves.
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.
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Mashed potatoes supply starch and moisture that give the bread a soft, tender crumb.
- Yeast cakes
- Yeast ferments the mixture, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Flour
- Flour forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaves their body.
- Coarse sea salt
- Salt controls yeast activity and adds flavor to the dough.
The step that matters
Keeping the dough warm while it rises. Yeast works slowly in cold conditions and quickly in warm ones, so a warm place lets the dough rise fully and become light before shaping.
“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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