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Fried Potato Balls

Fried potato balls are small, golden balls made from mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, and spices, fried in lard and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix melted butter with cold mashed potatoes and beat until light.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolk, salt, and paprika.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white gently.

Shape and fry

  1. Dust your hands with flour and form the mixture into balls.

  2. Roll the balls in flour and fry them in hot lard until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a dish garnished with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Cold mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy base that holds the balls together.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture.
Egg white
Folded in gently to lighten the mixture and add loft.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the potato texture.
Flour
Dry coating on the balls that helps them brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden. If the lard is not hot enough, the balls absorb fat and turn greasy before browning. Hot fat sets the coating quickly and gives a crisp golden surface.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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