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 Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the potato mixture
Boil the potatoes and hops in water for 20 minutes, tying the hops in a muslin bag.
Remove the bag of hops and mash the potatoes in the water until smooth.
Add salt, molasses, and enough flour to create a thin batter.
Ferment and store
When the mixture is warm, stir in the dissolved yeast or lively liquid yeast.
Place the mixture near a warm fire to ferment, then transfer to a covered stone or glass jar and store in a cool place.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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).
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Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Potato + molassestop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together197 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Their starch and body thicken the batter and provide food for the yeast to ferment.
- Hops
- Add bitterness and aroma and act as a natural preservative in the starter.
- Molasses
- Provides sugar that feeds the yeast and adds flavour and colour.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture into a batter and supplies additional starch for fermentation.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars, producing carbon dioxide that makes the starter bubble and rise.
The step that matters
Stirring in the yeast when the mixture is warm. Yeast is killed by high heat and works slowly when cold. Adding it only when the mixture is warm, not hot, lets it activate and ferment steadily.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, molasses, flour):
- Mustardfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Parsnipfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against hops, molasses, flour. 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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