Name: Potato Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound potatoes; 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 5 eggs; 1 lemon (juice only); 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 teaspoon ground mace

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the potatoes until tender, then rub them through a colander.
Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.
Beat the eggs separately, then add the lemon juice while the mixture is hot.
Fold in the egg whites last.

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.

Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,052 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg):

Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.