Name: Princess Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 pint mashed potatoes; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 1 egg

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 ↓

Princess Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

1 pint mashed potatoes
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 egg

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the mashed potatoes into strips 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and ½ inch thick, or form them into flat balls ½ inch thick.
Dip the strips or balls into the melted butter, then into the beaten egg.
Place them in a lightly buttered tin pan.

Bake and serve

Bake for 12 minutes and serve.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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

Mashed potatoes: Form the main body of the dish, holding its shape when cut into strips or balls.
Egg: Binds the coating to the potatoes and helps them set and brown in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the surface brown while baking.