Name: Potato Crust or Edging
Ingredients: 12 medium potatoes; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup cream or milk

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

12 medium potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup cream or milk

Directions

Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them well.
Add the butter, salt, and cream or milk, and stir until combined.
Form the mixture into a crust shape, similar to rice.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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 starch and bulk that hold the mashed mixture together as a crust.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture in the crust.
Cream or milk: Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes blend into a smooth, workable mixture.