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Potato-wall

A molded wall of mashed potatoes baked with butter and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato-wall

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the wall

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add a good piece of butter and mix well.

  3. Using two silver spoons, form a wall 2.5 inches high within the rim of the dish.

  4. Make the upper part thinner than the lower and smooth it out.

Bake and finish

  1. Brush the entire surface with beaten egg.

  2. Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until hot and slightly colored.

  3. Optionally, decorate the outside with bits of paste cut into shapes.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Form the mashed body of the wall, giving it structure and a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more pliable mash.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the surface promotes browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Make the upper part thinner than the lower and smooth it out. A wall that is thick at the top can slump or stay uneven as it bakes. Tapering the upper edge and smoothing it helps the shape hold its form in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. 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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