Name: Potato Stuffing
Ingredients: 1 quart white potatoes; ¼ pound butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; any sweet herb except sage

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel, boil, and mash the potatoes.
Add the butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herb to the mashed potatoes.

Stuff the turkey

Use this mixture to stuff the turkey.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + sagetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together386 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,312 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

White potatoes: Form the bulk of the stuffing, giving it a soft, starchy body once mashed.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, keeping the mashed potato moist and smooth.