Name: A Potatoe Pudding
Ingredients: 2 pounds potatoes; ½ pound melted butter; ⅓ cup white wine or juice of 1 Seville orange; sugar to taste

Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Potatoe Pudding

Ingredients

2 pounds potatoes
½ pound melted butter
⅓ cup white wine or juice of 1 Seville orange
sugar to taste

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

Boil the potatoes until tender.
Mash the potatoes in a mortar until fine.

Mix and cook

Mix in the melted butter.
Add the white wine or Seville orange juice.
Cook the mixture for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

Pour additional melted butter over the pudding.
Sprinkle sugar over the top before serving.

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.

Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + white winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together533 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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: Cooked and mashed to form the soft, bulky body of the pudding.
Melted butter: Adds richness and moisture, coating the mashed potato for a smooth texture.
White wine or seville orange juice: Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich potato base.