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Potato Puff with Cheese

A baked potato puff made with mashed potatoes, egg, milk, butter, cheese, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Potato Puff with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, milk, and melted butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Gently fold in the whipped egg.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle the grated cheese evenly over the top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, fluffy body of the puff.
Egg
Adds structure and helps the puff set as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the potato mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mashed potatoes.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped egg.. Folding keeps the air whipped into the egg, which helps the puff rise and stay light. Stirring vigorously would deflate the mixture and make it dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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