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Potatoes with Mushrooms

A stew of mashed potatoes, butter, egg yolks, veal kidney, and button mushrooms, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, mace, and capsicum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,571 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potatoes with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them with boiling milk.

  2. Add butter, egg yolks, and seasonings to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a stewpan.

Cook and serve

  1. Place small pieces of veal kidney and button mushrooms throughout the mixture.

  2. Cook over a clear fire for about an hour until the kidney is just crisped at the bottom.

  3. 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. Pepper + capsicumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

  2. Potato + capsicumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,681 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Floury potatoes
Break down when mashed, giving the base a soft, fluffy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the mashed potatoes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mash and help bind it into a cohesive, custard-like texture.
Veal kidney
Browns and crisps at the bottom of the stewpan, adding savoury flavour and contrast.
Button mushrooms
Release moisture and savoury flavour into the stew as they cook.

The step that matters

Cooking until the kidney is just crisped. Heat must be gentle enough to cook the kidney through without drying it out or burning the potato base at the bottom. Kidney turns tough when overcooked, so timing matters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, butter, egg, pepper, capsicum, veal):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, egg, pepper, capsicum, veal. 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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