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Potato Balls

Potato balls are fried balls made from mashed potatoes, butter, cream, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the cold potatoes in a pan with melted butter, salt, pepper, cream, and the beaten egg.

  2. Rub the mixture together for about 5 minutes until very soft.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into round balls.

  2. Dip the balls into fine sifted bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in boiling lard until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 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

Mealy potatoes
Their starch gives the balls a light, fluffy interior when mashed.
Beaten egg
Binds the mashed potato so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and softens the mixture for a tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the mashed potato.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in boiling lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb more fat and turn greasy before the crust sets.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cream, egg, bread. 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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