Name: Potato Wall, or Edging, to Serve Round Fricassee of Fish
Ingredients: Potatoes; Butter; Egg

Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Wall, or Edging, to Serve Round Fricassee of Fish

Ingredients

Potatoes
Butter
Egg

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.

Mash the desired amount of potatoes with a good piece of butter.
Using the bowls of two silver spoons, shape the mashed potatoes into a wall 2.5 inches high within the rim of the dish.
Make the upper part slightly thinner than the lower and smooth it out.
Brush the entire surface with beaten egg.
Place the dish in a 350°F (175°C) oven until heated and lightly browned.

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.

Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).