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Potato Crusts

Potato crusts are fried potato shells filled with a desired filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Crusts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

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

  2. Place the potatoes in a buttered square tin pan, about 1.5 inches thick, and smooth the top.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and let cool.

  4. Once cold, turn out onto a table and cut out rounds using a cutter the size of a dollar.

Bread and fry

  1. Roll the rounds in fresh bread crumbs, dip in beaten eggs, and bread them again.

  2. Shape them nicely and use a cutter the size of a quarter to make an impression on top.

  3. Fry in hot lard until nicely colored, then drain.

Hollow and fill

  1. After a few minutes, remove the top and scoop out the center without damaging the shell.

  2. Fill with your desired filling.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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 bulk of the shell and, once cooled and cut, hold their shape for frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the potatoes and keeps the pan surface from sticking.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the potato rounds.
Lard for frying
Conducts heat to brown and crisp the coated rounds.

The step that matters

Scoop out the center without damaging the shell. The fried shell is fragile and must keep a wall thick enough to hold the filling. Scooping too early, while it is still hot and soft, or pressing too hard can tear it. Letting it rest a few minutes first firms the structure.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg. 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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