Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Meat Balls

A fried mixture of chopped meat and boiled potatoes seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Hashed Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat and boiled potatoes.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the butter and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into round cakes, dusting your hands with flour.

  2. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown on both sides.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Chopped meat
Adds savory flavor and protein that firms up as the cakes cook.
Boiled potatoes
Adds bulk and starch that helps the cakes hold together and stay tender inside.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside of the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. The cakes need enough hot butter to form a browned crust on both sides. Moving them too early can make them stick and tear, so let each side set before turning.

Swap the potato

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

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

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

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes