Name: Baked Potatoes with Anchovies
Ingredients: 12 potatoes; ½ pound anchovies; 6 hard-boiled eggs; sour cream; butter; bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Potatoes with Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Peel, boil, and slice the potatoes.
Wash the anchovies and remove the skin and bones.
Cut the hard-boiled eggs into quarters.
Butter a deep baking dish thickly.

Layer and bake

Layer the sliced potatoes in the bottom and moisten with sour cream.
Add a layer of eggs and anchovies, alternating until the dish is full.
Finish with a layer of potatoes on top, moisten with sour cream, and sprinkle with bread crumbs and small pieces of butter.
Wipe off the edges and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together434 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the dish, turning soft and starchy as they bake through.
Anchovies: Add a salty, savory flavor that seasons the layers from within.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture between the potato layers.
Sour cream: Adds moisture and tang, keeping the layers from drying out in the oven.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping on the surface.