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Potato Surprise

Mashed potato balls filled with peas or sweetbreads, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine mashed potatoes, celery, pepper, butter, cayenne, salt, grated onion, and egg yolk.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then shape it into balls.

Fill and shape

  1. Make a small indentation in the center of each ball and fill with peas or sweetbreads.

  2. Shape the filled balls into croquettes or potato shapes.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, tender interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato mixture so the shaped croquettes hold together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the potato mixture for a smoother bite.

The step that matters

Shape the filled balls into croquettes. Potato mixture is soft and can crack or leak filling if shaped while warm or handled roughly. Letting it cool slightly before shaping helps the balls hold their form in the fat.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, pepper, butter, onion, egg, meat):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, pepper, butter, onion, egg, meat. 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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