Why it works: Potato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,517 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Select a well-drained spot for planting.
Cut seed potatoes into pieces, ensuring each has at least two eyes.
Dip the cut side of each piece into wood ashes and let them dry for a few hours.
Plant each slice 9 to 12 inches apart, placing a small clove of garlic beside each slice.
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 + garlictop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,517 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,368 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Potato + clovetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,297 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, garlic):
- Cuminfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Rosemaryfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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