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Potato Balls, Margot Style

Potato balls mixed with braised meat, seasoned, coated, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Balls, Margot Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the potatoes as directed in recipe No. 1185.

  2. Mix the prepared potatoes with an equal quantity of finely chopped braised veal, beef, or lamb.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then add chopped parsley and lightly fried onions.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the mixture into balls, then flatten them slightly.

  2. Dip the balls into beaten eggs, coat with flour, and fry in hot lard until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin, garnished with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the meatball and give a soft, tender interior texture.
Braised veal, beef, or lamb
Adds savory meaty flavor and body to the mixture, binding it with the potatoes.
Beaten eggs
Create a coating that helps the crust set and turn golden when fried.
Flour
Dries the egg-coated surface so it browns and crisps in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to brown the floured, egg-coated surface quickly. If the lard is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy and pale before the interior is heated through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, veal, pepper, parsley, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, veal, pepper, parsley, butter, egg, flour. 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.

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