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Potato Baskets

A baked dish of mashed potatoes shaped into baskets, brushed with egg and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Potato Baskets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the mashed potatoes with butter, salt, and slightly beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add enough milk to moisten the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into small baskets.

  2. Brush the tops with slightly beaten egg white.

  3. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

  4. Use parsley to form handles for the baskets.

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the main body of the baskets and hold their shape once cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the potato mixture soft and tender.
Milk
Moistens the potato so it can be shaped without crumbling.
Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture, and the brushed white helps the tops brown and set.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk should be added only until the mixture is moist enough to shape. Too much liquid makes the potato slump and lose its basket shape, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to form.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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