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Texas Baked Potatoes

Stuffed baked potato skins filled with mashed potatoes, butter, onion, pepper, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Texas Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the medium-sized potatoes until tender.

  2. Cut the potatoes lengthwise and scrape the flesh into a dish, reserving the skins.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the potatoes and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, butter, and grated onion.

  2. Add a little cream or milk and beat well.

Fill and brown

  1. Fill the reserved potato skins with the mixture.

  2. Place the filled skins in the oven and 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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy flesh that mashes into the filling and the skins that hold it.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mashed filling a smoother, softer texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potato becomes soft and easy to spoon into the skins.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and a mild sharpness to the mashed filling.

The step that matters

Place the filled skins in the oven and brown. Browning needs dry, fairly high heat on the exposed filling. Too little time leaves it pale, while too much can dry the filling and scorch the skins.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, 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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