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A yeast starter made from mashed potatoes, hop water, sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and hops

  1. Peel and mash the potatoes finely, then strain through a colander.

  2. Boil the hops in water to make 1 quart of hop-water; add clear water if needed.

Make the starter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the potato water, hop-water, and sugar.

  2. When warm, add the yeast and let it stand until light and foamy.

  3. Stir in the salt, then transfer to a jug and cork tightly.

  4. Use 1 teacup of this yeast for every 4 loaves of bread.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Egg + hopstop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch and liquid form the body of the starter and feed the yeast.
Hops
Their bitter compounds add aroma and help preserve the starter against spoilage.
Sugar
Provides fuel for the yeast, driving fermentation and the foamy rise.
Baker’s yeast
Ferments the sugars and starches, producing gas that makes the starter light and foamy.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast when the liquid is warm. Yeast works best in warm liquid; if it is too hot, the cells are killed, and if it is cold, fermentation is slow and the starter may not foam.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, hops, sugar. 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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