Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Potato Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Boil enough potatoes to make 1 lb when mashed.
Make the mixture
Add butter, eggs, milk, sherry, lemon juice, and sugar to the mashed potatoes.
Finely mince the lemon rind and mix it into the ingredients.
Beat all the ingredients well together.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for just over 1 hour.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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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Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mashed potatoes
- Form the bulk of the pudding and give it a soft, tender body.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes into a custard-like texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the mixture so it bakes softly.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
- Sherry
- Adds aromatic flavour and a little acidity to the pudding.
The step that matters
Beat all the ingredients well together. Thorough beating distributes the eggs, butter and liquids evenly through the potatoes, so the pudding bakes with a uniform texture rather than pockets of egg or fat.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, sherry, lemon, sugar):
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, sherry, lemon, sugar. 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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