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 ↓
Irish Biscuits
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash thoroughly.
Stir in the warm potato mixture with the butter and lard, salt, and beaten eggs.
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk, then add to the potato mixture.
Gradually mix in 4 cups of sifted flour and set in a warm place until light.
Add enough additional flour to form a soft dough and let rise again.
Turn the dough onto a floured surface, roll out, and cut with a biscuit cutter.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, sugar, flour):
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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