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Pommes De Terre a LA Duchesse--duchess Potatoes

A baked potato dish shaped into lozenges or rolls, enriched with butter, egg yolks, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pommes De Terre a LA Duchesse--duchess Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, then drain and let them dry.

  2. Mash the potatoes until fine, then mix in the butter, egg yolks, salt, and nutmeg.

Shape and bake

  1. Dust a surface with flour and shape the potato mixture into lozenges, rounds, ovals, or small dinner rolls.

  2. Place the shaped potatoes on a buttered baking sheet and brush them with the beaten egg.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Their dry, starchy flesh mashes smoothly and holds its shape when piped or shaped.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth, tender texture and flavour.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the mash bind so the shapes hold together while baking.
Beaten egg
Brushed on the surface, it promotes browning and a glossy golden finish in the oven.

The step that matters

Drying the boiled potatoes. Excess water dilutes the mash and makes the shaped pieces soft and likely to slump. Draining and drying the potatoes well keeps the mixture firm enough to shape and bake.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, nutmeg, flour. 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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