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Potatoes a LA Duchesse

A French potato dish made with mashed potatoes, butter, egg yolks, and salt, rolled into shapes and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potatoes a LA Duchesse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato mixture

  1. Take eight large potatoes, boiled and mashed fine.

  2. Add one tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of two raw eggs, a little salt.

  3. Stir all together over the fire.

  4. Set it away to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. When quite cold, roll it on a board, with flour to keep from sticking.

  2. Make it in cake or any form you wish.

  3. Take the white of the egg, beat with a little water.

  4. Dip in the potato and roll in bread or cracker crumbs.

  5. Fry in hot lard.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

341Calories
11 gProtein
17 gFat
38 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. See the original page.

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 + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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 mixture and give the cakes their soft, fluffy body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potato.
Eggs
Yolks bind the potato into a mixture that holds its shape; the beaten white helps crumbs adhere.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. Cold potato is firm and easy to handle, while warm mash is soft and sticky. Chilling lets the egg yolks set the mixture so the cakes keep their shape and do not fall apart in the hot lard.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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