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 ↓
Potato Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Boil the potatoes in their jackets until mealy.
Cool, skin, and beat the potatoes to a pulp.
Combine and rest
Add milk and mix well by hand.
Season with coarse sea salt and let stand for 3 days.
Drain and pot
Work the mixture well again and drain.
When tolerably dry, pot it like butter and consume within 2 weeks.
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.
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Potatoes
- Form the main bulk and body of the mash once beaten to a pulp.
- Curdled milk
- Supplies the sour, curdled character that gives the mixture its tangy flavour.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the mashed potato can be worked into a smooth mixture.
The step that matters
Draining when tolerably dry. Draining removes liquid whey, so the mixture firms up. Drain too little and it stays wet and spoils quickly; drain too much and it becomes crumbly and dry.
“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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