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Potato Omelet

A fried potato mixture with sugar, cinnamon, and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.

  2. Mix in the loaf sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Add the orange juice and stir until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Potato + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together537 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Mashed, they form the bulk and soft body of the omelette.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and moisture, balancing the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat lets the surface brown through Maillard and caramelisation reactions without burning the sugar. Too high a heat scorches the sugars before the centre sets.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, orange):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, orange. 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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