Why it works: Potato and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 30 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 4Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cut the cooked potatoes into small cubes. Put the sliced leek in a small pan with a splash of water, cover, and cook gently for 5 minutes until soft. Drain well.
In a bowl, mix the crème fraîche, horseradish sauce and dried thyme. Stir in the chopped ham, potatoes and leek until evenly combined.
Unroll the puff pastry onto the lined baking sheet. Spread the filling over the centre, leaving a border of about 3cm (1 inch) all around.
Fold the pastry border up and over the filling to enclose it partly, pleating the corners as needed. Brush the exposed pastry with the milk.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden and the filling is heated through. Rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Potato + leektop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together30 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Leek + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together360 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Potato + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,586 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
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Potato + milktop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + horseradishtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together171 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the horseradish
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, leek, sauce, ham, thyme, milk):
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Asparagusbetter flavor fit
- Horseradishthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, leek, sauce, ham, thyme, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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