Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Rye Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Sift the flour and work in the mashed potato.
Scald the milk, then add sugar, molasses, shortening, salt, and water.
When lukewarm, add the yeast dissolved in lukewarm water.
Knead the dough well and let it rise until doubled in bulk.
Shape into loaves, let rise again until doubled, and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 60 minutes.
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 + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 (milk, sugar, molasses, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, molasses, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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