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Baked Potato Puff

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with eggs, butter, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Potato Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until done.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes well.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the eggs separately.

  2. Mix the yolks into the mashed potatoes.

  3. Add butter and enough milk to make a thin mixture.

  4. Season the mixture with salt.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Bake until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the puff its soft, fluffy body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the mash, while whipped whites lift it so it puffs and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture, and helps the browned surface develop flavour.
Milk
Loosens the mash to a thin mixture and adds moisture for a tender interior.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Egg whites trap air when beaten, and that air is what makes the puff rise. Folding gently keeps the air in; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a dense result.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk. 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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