Name: Mashed Irish Potatoes
Ingredients: Potatoes; ½ cup cream; 1 walnut-sized piece of butter; Salt to taste

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mashed Irish Potatoes

Ingredients

Potatoes
½ cup cream
1 walnut-sized piece of butter
Salt to taste

Directions

Peel and wash the potatoes.
Place them in a kettle and cover with boiling water.
Boil until tender, then drain the water.
Mash the potatoes until very fine.
Gradually mix in the cream and butter.
Beat until light and white, adding salt to taste.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + walnuttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).