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Bread and Potato Balls

A savory dish of mashed potato and bread balls boiled and served with browned bread pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread and Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, then mash them.

  2. Soak the stale bread, press it dry, and break it into pieces.

  3. Dice the large onion and finely chop the green onions and parsley.

Make the filling

  1. Heat a little lard in a pan, add the diced onion, and cook until yellow.

  2. Add the green onions, parsley, thyme, and bread to the pan, cooking until the bread is heated through.

  3. Mix the hot mashed potatoes into the bread mixture and let it cool.

  4. Once cooled, beat the eggs and mix them with a little salt, pepper, and just enough flour to hold the mixture together.

  5. Flour your hands and roll the mixture into balls about 2 inches in diameter.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the balls in plenty of salted water until they rise to the top, about 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the balls with a skimmer and top with browned bread pieces sautéed in lard and butter.

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. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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 starchy body that holds the balls together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set when the balls are boiled.
Stale bread
Adds body and absorbs moisture, giving the filling a softer, lighter texture.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth when cooked gently in lard.
Flour
Adds just enough starch to help the mixture hold its shape.

The step that matters

Rolling the balls with just enough flour. Too little flour leaves the mixture too loose to hold its shape in the water, while too much makes the balls dense and heavy. Lightly floured hands keep the mixture from sticking without adding extra starch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, bread, parsley, thyme, summer savory, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, bread, parsley, thyme, summer savory, 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.

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