Name: Sweet or Irish Potato Pudding
Ingredients: 5 large potatoes; 4 eggs; 1 cup milk; Sugar to taste; 1 lemon (juice and grated rind); Drawn butter; A little wine (optional)

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 ↓

Sweet or Irish Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potato base

Boil the potatoes.
Peel the boiled potatoes.
Mash the peeled potatoes.
Add the eggs and milk. Mix well.

Cook the pudding

Cook for 4 hours by boiling or steaming.

Make the sauce and finish

Combine drawn butter with sugar.
Boil the mixture.
Add the lemon juice, grated rind, and a little wine if desired.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the starchy bulk of the pudding, giving it a soft, dense body once mashed.
Eggs: Bind the mashed potato and set during cooking to give the pudding structure.
Milk: Adds moisture and softness so the mashed potato mixture blends into a smooth batter.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and the butter sauce.
Lemon: Adds bright acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, lemon, butter, wine):

Asparagusfits about as well
Potatothe original
Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, lemon, butter, wine. 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.