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Potato Turnovers

Potato turnovers are baked turnovers filled with minced meat or poultry, made from mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Turnovers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potato dough

  1. Mash warm, dry, mealy potatoes.

  2. Add a piece of butter and mix in 2 or 3 beaten eggs, depending on the quantity of potatoes.

  3. Spread the potato mixture on a floured surface to a thickness of ¾ inch.

  4. Once cool, cut out squares or round cakes, 5 inches across.

Fill and coat

  1. Place 1 large tablespoon of minced meat or poultry on each cake.

  2. Fold half of the cake over to cover the filling.

  3. Coat the turnovers with egg and bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dry, mealy potatoes
Form the main body of the dough, and their starch gives a light, tender texture when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the dough and improving its flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mashed potato into a dough that holds its shape when cut and folded.
Remnants of meat or poultry, minced fine
Provide the savory filling, with fine mincing helping it spread evenly within the turnover.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cool the potato mixture before cutting. Warm potato dough is soft and sticky, so it tears and misshapes when cut. Letting it cool firms the starch and lets the eggs set slightly, so the squares or cakes keep clean edges and hold the filling when folded.

Swap the potato

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

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

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