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 ↓
Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the hop-water and potatoes
In a saucepan, boil the dry hops in 2 quarts of boiling water.
In another saucepan, boil the potatoes until done.
Make the batter
Mash the potatoes finely and add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.
Strain the hop-water into the mashed potatoes and stir in enough flour to make a thin batter.
Let the mixture cool until it's warm to the touch, then stir in 1 pint of yeast.
Set the mixture aside to rise for 5 to 6 hours until foamy.
Store
Strain the yeast through a colander into a stone jug, seal it tightly, 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.
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
- Provide starch and body that thicken the batter and feed the yeast.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the batter, producing gas that makes it rise and turn foamy.
- Flour
- Gives the thin batter structure and starch for the yeast to work on.
The step that matters
Cooling before adding the yeast. If the mixture is still hot when the yeast goes in, the heat can kill the yeast cells, so the batter will fail to rise. It should be only warm to the touch.
“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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