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Stuffed Potatoes

Potatoes are baked, scooped, mashed with butter, salt, pepper, and refilled into skins, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stuffed Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the potatoes until done and hot.

  2. Cut a small piece from one end of each potato and scoop out the inside, leaving the skin unbroken.

Fill and finish

  1. Mash the potato well and season with plenty of butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Return the mashed potato to the skins, leaving it protruding about 1 inch.

  3. Set the potato on the opposite end, crushing it slightly to make it stand firmly.

  4. Roughen the exposed potato with a knife or fork.

  5. Place the potatoes in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) to lightly brown the tops.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 is mashed and piped back into the skins as the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the mashed potato smooth and moist.

The step that matters

Roughen the exposed potato before browning. Scoring or roughening the mashed surface creates more exposed edges and peaks, which brown faster and more deeply in the hot oven. A smooth surface stays pale.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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