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Duchess Potatoes

Fried potato balls made with boiled potatoes, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Duchess Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Grate the boiled potatoes.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, and salt, stirring lightly with a fork.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls into boiling lard.

  2. Fry until the balls are a rich brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

843Calories
32 gProtein
15 gFat
145 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog]. 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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, starchy body of the dough.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so the balls hold together when fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the balls during frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the balls as they cook.
Milk
Adds moisture so the dough stays soft and workable.

The step that matters

Frying the balls in boiling lard. Browning comes from Maillard reactions at the surface, while the centre must cook through. If the lard is too cool, the balls absorb fat and turn greasy; if too hot, they darken before the inside is cooked.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, 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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