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Potato Puff

A baked potato and egg mixture topped with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Puff

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the mashed potatoes with melted butter until creamy.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then add to the potato mixture.

  3. Stir in the cream, salt, and pepper until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set and browned.

  2. Garnish with parsley 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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and give it a soft, creamy body.
Eggs
Set the mixture when baked and add structure and lift through whisked air.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the interior tender rather than dry.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness, and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Whisking traps air in the eggs, which helps the puff rise and lighten in the oven. Under-beaten eggs give a denser result, and the eggs must be fully combined so they set evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cream, pepper, parsley. 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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