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Potato Sausage

A fried sausage made from equal parts cold veal and mashed potatoes, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the cold veal and cold mashed potatoes in equal parts.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes and dust them lightly with flour.

Fry

  1. Heat oil or butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the cakes until they are light brown on both sides.

  3. If available, you can fry them in leftover sausage gravy for added flavor.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cold veal
Provides the meaty base and savory flavor of the cakes.
Cold mashed potatoes
Binds the mixture and adds moisture and body to the cakes.
Flour
Dusted on the cakes to help them brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until light brown on both sides. Frying over medium heat lets the surface brown through the Maillard reaction while the inside heats through. Heat that is too high can scorch the flour-dusted outside before the centre warms.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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