Name: Potato Rolls
Ingredients: 5 large potatoes, mashed while warm; 1 quart all-purpose flour; Coarse sea salt, to taste; 1 teacup (about ⅔ cup) milk

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 ↓

Potato Rolls

Ingredients

5 large potatoes, mashed while warm
1 quart all-purpose flour
Coarse sea salt, to taste
1 teacup (about ⅔ cup) milk

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Mash the potatoes while they are warm.
Add the flour and salt to the mashed potatoes.
Stir in the milk until the mixture is light.
Shape the mixture into rolls.

Rise and bake

Let the rolls stand for 2 hours.
Bake the rolls in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Their starch and moisture make the rolls soft and tender inside.
All-purpose flour: Its gluten and starch build the structure that holds the rolls together.
Milk: Adds moisture and milk sugars that soften the crumb and help the crust brown.