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To Boast Ob Bake Potatoes

Baked potatoes served hot with cold butter on the side.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Boast Ob Bake Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scrub and wash the potatoes thoroughly, then wipe them dry.

Bake and serve

  1. Roast the potatoes in a 400°F (200°C) oven, turning them often.

  2. Arrange the potatoes in a coarse dish and bake them in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Serve the potatoes hot, neatly arranged in a napkin, with cold butter on the side.

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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starchy flesh that turns soft and fluffy as it cooks, while the skin becomes firm.
Butter
Adds richness and a melting fat that coats the hot potato flesh.

The step that matters

Wiping the potatoes dry before baking. Surface moisture turns to steam in the oven and softens the skin. A dry surface lets the skin dry out and firm up, which helps it crisp and keeps the flesh from becoming soggy.

“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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