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Dessert

Potato Crust or Edging

A crust made from mashed potatoes, butter, salt, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Crust or Edging

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them well.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and cream or milk to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Stir the mixture well with a large spoon.

  4. Form the mixture into a crust shape.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that mashes into a firm, shapeable crust.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potato becomes smooth and easy to shape.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes well. Thorough mashing breaks down the cooked starch so the potato becomes smooth and binds together. Lumps or unmashed pieces weaken the crust and make it crumble when formed.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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