Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Liquid Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Peel and boil the potatoes until done.
Mash the potatoes until perfectly smooth.
While hot, stir in 2 tablespoons of sifted flour.
Add 1 pint of the water the potatoes were boiled in to make a moderately thin batter.
Add the yeast and rise
Dissolve the yeast cake in a small quantity of warm water while the potatoes are cooking.
When the batter is tepid, stir in the dissolved yeast cake.
Set the mixture in a warm place to rise.
Once light, it is ready for use.
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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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Their starch and mashed body thicken the batter and give it a smooth, substantial texture.
- Flour
- Adds starch and structure, helping the batter hold its body as it rises.
- Potato cooking water
- Supplies the liquid that loosens the mash into a moderately thin batter.
- Yeast cake
- Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes it rise and turn light.
The step that matters
Stir in the yeast only when the batter is tepid. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to a hot batter can stop it from fermenting. Cooling to tepid keeps the yeast alive so the batter can rise.
“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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