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Potato Pancakes

A savory dish of grated potatoes mixed with eggs, flour, and salt, then fried into golden cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the potatoes and let them sit for a few minutes.

  2. Carefully remove the water that rises to the top.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, flour, and salt to the potatoes.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat oil or butter in a griddle and flatten the mixture into cakes.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides, adding more grease as needed.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that forms the body of the pancakes.
Eggs
Yolks bind the batter while whipped whites lighten its texture and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cakes hold together while frying.
Oil or butter
Conducts heat and promotes browning on the cakes' surfaces.

The step that matters

Removing the water that rises to the top. Grated potatoes release liquid that dilutes the batter and makes cakes soggy and loose. Pouring off this water keeps the mixture thick enough to hold its shape and crisp in the pan.

Swap the potato

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

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

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