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Potato Ceoquettes

A fried potato cake coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Ceoquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pass the potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the potatoes, milk, salt, and pepper to the butter.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Roll each cake in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the cakes in hot fat 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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 starch that hold the cakes together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the potato mixture.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs stick to each cake.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the potatoes for shaping.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browning outer coating during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot fat until golden brown.. Hot fat quickly sets and browns the crumb coating, creating a crisp crust. Fat that is too cool soaks in, leaving greasy, soft cakes that can fall apart.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, pepper, milk, 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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