Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Potato Pudding
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.
Make the mixture
While the mashed potatoes are hot, add the suet, flour, salt, and enough milk to make a very thick mixture.
Transfer the mixture to a baking dish or roll it into balls.
Bake and serve
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.
Serve with syrup or molasses.
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.
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Mashed potatoes
- Provide the bulk and starchy body that holds the pudding together.
- Suet
- Adds fat that gives a rich, tender texture as it melts during baking.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture with starch so it holds its shape rather than running.
- Milk
- Moistens the mixture so the dry ingredients bind into a workable dough.
The step that matters
Adding the milk gradually. The mixture must be very thick but still moist enough to bind. Too much milk makes it slack and hard to shape, while too little leaves it crumbly and dry.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Parsnipfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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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