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Dessert

Potato Pone

A baked potato cake made with grated potatoes, sugar, butter or beef dripping, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Potato Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and grate the potatoes.

  2. Add sugar, melted butter or beef dripping, salt, and pepper; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking or pie dish.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 35 minutes until the surface is nicely browned.

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

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

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

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 pone, giving it a starchy, substantial body once baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pone moist and helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Bake until the surface is nicely browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and caramelisation of sugars and starches at the surface. Stopping too early leaves the top pale and the flavour flat, while the interior needs enough heat to become fully cooked and set.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, pepper. 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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