Name: Baked Mashed Potatoes with Ham, Buckeye Style
Ingredients: Potatoes (prepared as in recipe No. 1182); 2 tablespoons butter; 2 shallots, finely chopped; ¼ pound ham, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Mashed Potatoes with Ham, Buckeye Style

Ingredients

Potatoes (prepared as in recipe No. 1182)
2 tablespoons butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
¼ pound ham, finely chopped
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Directions

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the chopped shallots and ham, and toss lightly for a few minutes.
Combine the mixture with the prepared potatoes and parsley, mixing well.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.
Bake according to the instructions in recipe No. 1183.

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.

Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Swap the potato

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

Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Mustardfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, ham, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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Baked Mashed Potatoes with Ham, Buckeye Style