Name: Potato Rolls
Ingredients: 1 pint sliced and peeled tomatoes; 1½ cups water; ½ cup sugar; 1 tablespoon lard; 1 cup yeast; flour (to thicken)

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Potato Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the sliced and peeled tomatoes in 1 pint of water.
Pour off the water and mash the tomatoes finely.
Add 1½ cups of water and strain the mixture.
Stir in ½ cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of lard.
Add 1 cup of yeast and let it rise overnight.
Gradually add flour until the mixture is thick enough to roll out.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,065 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).