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Potato Balls

Potato Balls are fried balls of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, egg yolk, and optional ham or tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Incorporate melted butter into cold mashed potatoes until light and white.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolk and season to taste.

  3. Form the mixture into balls using floured palms.

  4. Roll the balls thickly in flour.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry in hot lard for about 2 minutes until golden.

  2. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain excess fat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 starch that hold the balls together.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture into a cohesive dough.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and a light colour.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard for about 2 minutes until golden. If the lard is not hot enough, the balls absorb fat and turn greasy instead of crisping. Too hot and the outside browns before the centre heats through. Keeping the fat at a steady frying temperature gives a crisp, golden exterior.

Swap the potato

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

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

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