Name: Potato Sausages
Ingredients: 1 pint mashed potato; 2 eggs, well beaten; 1 cup bread crumbs; 2 oz butter (or Allinson nut-oil); ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Mash the potatoes well with one of the eggs.
Add nutmeg, pepper, and salt to the mixture.

Shape and coat

Form the mixture into sausage shapes.
Roll the sausages in the remaining egg and then in the bread crumbs.

Cook

Fry the sausages until they are brown.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,052 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes (in the method): Provide the bulk and body that hold the sausage shape together.
Eggs: Bind the mashed potato and form a coating that helps the crumbs stick.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.
Butter: Adds fat for frying, promoting browning and a richer flavor.

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, nutmeg, 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.