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Baked Mashed Potatoes with Ham, Buckeye Style

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, shallots, ham, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Directions

Make the ham mixture

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped shallots and ham, and sauté lightly.

Combine and bake

  1. Combine the ham mixture with the prepared potatoes and parsley, mixing well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake according to the instructions in 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.

  1. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and provide a soft, fluffy body when mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and keeping the mash smooth.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that softens and blends into the dish.
Ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor and a little browning during cooking.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. 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.

“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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