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Potato Balls

A savory dish of bread, sweetbreads, mushrooms, and potatoes simmered in a butter and wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread case

  1. Order a 2-pound loaf of bread.

  2. Bake the loaf in a cake tin.

  3. Let the loaf sit for one day.

  4. Cut off the top of the loaf.

  5. Scoop out the crumb, leaving a ¾ inch border.

  6. Remove the crust.

  7. Dip the case in ½ cup melted butter.

  8. Bake for 20 minutes.

  9. Redip in butter.

  10. Bake until pale brown.

Make the sweetbread sauce

  1. Cut off the pith and skin of the sweetbreads.

  2. Blanch the sweetbreads in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  3. Cool the sweetbreads in cold water for 1 hour.

  4. Dry the sweetbreads.

  5. Dredge the sweetbreads with 2 teaspoons baked flour.

  6. Rub the bottom of a pan with garlic.

  7. Add 2 ounces butter, sweetbreads, salt, white pepper, nutmeg, lemon rind, parsley, bay leaf, mace, cloves, lemon juice, white wine, and veal stock to the pan.

  8. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  9. Skim the surface.

  10. Simmer for 45 minutes.

  11. Remove the sweetbreads from the pan.

  12. Skim and strain the sauce.

  13. Add beaten egg yolks and ½ cup thick cream to the sauce.

  14. Boil for 2 minutes.

Prepare the mushrooms and potatoes

  1. Clean the mushrooms.

  2. Boil the mushrooms in 1 pint water with ¼ teaspoon salt and lemon juice for 12 minutes.

  3. Drain the mushrooms.

  4. Boil the potatoes.

  5. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and 1 ounce butter to the potatoes.

  6. Mash the potatoes.

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.

  1. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the hollow case that holds the filling, its crumb removed and crust browned in butter.
Sweetbreads
Supplies the main meat filling, which turns tender after blanching and slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the bread case brown in the oven.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it body and a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce and making it smoother.
Potatoes
Mashed with butter and salt to form a soft, smooth, rich base.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 minutes after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat. Boiling too hard or too long after adding them can curdle the sauce, so it should be kept at a gentle, controlled heat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, mace, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, nutmeg, lemon, parsley, mace, clove. 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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