Name: Potato Yeast
Ingredients: large, mealy boiled potatoes; 1 large handful of white flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teacup baker's yeast

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 ↓

Potato Yeast

Ingredients

large, mealy boiled potatoes
1 large handful of white flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teacup baker's yeast

Directions

Make the starter

Mash the boiled potatoes in a bowl.
Mix in the flour and salt.
Stir in the baker's yeast to form a batter.

Rise and store

Allow the mixture to rise until light.
Bottle and cork it tightly, then store in a cool place.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Large, mealy boiled potatoes: Provide starch and moisture that the yeast feeds on to ferment.
White flour: Adds starch that the yeast ferments, thickening the mixture into a batter.
Baker's yeast: Ferments the starches and releases gas, which makes the mixture rise and turn light.

“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.