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Potatoes for Lunch

Baked potatoes stuffed with mashed potato, salt, pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potatoes for Lunch

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake

  1. Bake the potatoes slowly at 300°F (150°C) until well done.

Stuff and serve

  1. Carefully cut an opening in one end and remove the inside.

  2. Mash the potato insides and season with salt, pepper, and cream.

  3. Return the mixture to the potato skins and sew them closed.

  4. Place the stuffed potatoes in the oven until very hot before serving.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Large mealy potatoes
Their starchy, fluffy flesh becomes the filling once baked and mashed.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the mashed potato smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the potato skins and sew them closed.. The skins must be filled and sealed firmly so the filling does not leak or dry out during the final reheating.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream. 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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