Name: Potato Doughnuts
Ingredients: 2 good sized potatoes; ½ cup butter (size of a large hickorynut); ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 eggs; 4 teaspoons baking powder; a little nutmeg; 4 cups sifted flour

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Boil and mash the potatoes finely.
While warm, mix in the butter and salt.
When cool, add the sweet milk, sugar, eggs, baking powder, nutmeg, and flour.
Pat the dough out on a board, then roll it lightly to cut into shapes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,052 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 (butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg, flour):

Sweet potatofits better
Arrowrootfits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.