Name: Potato Cakes
Ingredients: 2 cups mashed potato; 1 egg yolk; 2 tablespoons cream or milk; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Beat the egg yolk until light.
Mix the egg yolk with the mashed potato, salt, and pepper.
Add cream or milk only if the mixture is too dry to handle.

Cook

Form the mixture into small, flat, round cakes.
Sauté the cakes in hot fat or dripping until golden brown.

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.

Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potato: Forms the bulk of the cakes and gives them their soft, tender body.
Egg yolk: Binds the potato so the cakes hold their shape.
Cream or milk: Adds moisture to a dry mixture so it can be shaped.

The step that matters

Sauté the cakes in hot fat or dripping until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn soggy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust through the Maillard browning reaction.