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Potato Pudding

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with eggs, sugar, butter, and nutmeg in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Ingredients

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 filling

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes through a sieve.

  3. While the potatoes are hot, mix in the butter until melted.

  4. Beat the eggs and sugar together until very light.

  5. Combine the egg mixture with the mashed potatoes and season with nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a rich pie crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set the custard-like filling and add richness and structure as they cook.
Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the filling once mashed smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and melts into the hot potatoes for a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the beaten eggs stay light before baking.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and grainy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg. 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.

More potato pudding recipes

Sweet 116Irish 14Brandy 9Baked 7Cottage 6Lemon 5 See all 236 →

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