Name: Savoury Potato Pudding
Ingredients: 3 pounds potatoes; ¼ pound suet, finely shredded; ¼ pound grated cheese or pounded herring; ¼ pint milk

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 ↓

Savoury Potato Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

3 pounds potatoes
¼ pound suet, finely shredded
¼ pound grated cheese or pounded herring
¼ pint milk

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil, peel, and mash the potatoes.
Add the suet, cheese or herring, and milk to the mashed potatoes. Mix well and transfer to a baking dish.

Bake

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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 + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together959 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the pudding and give it a soft, starchy body.
Suet: Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
Cheese or herring: Supplies savory flavor that seasons the pudding throughout.
Milk: Adds moisture that helps the mash bind into a spoonable pudding.

“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.