Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Potatoes Cadeau
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Boil the potatoes in their skins and let them cool, preferably overnight.
Grate the cooled potatoes and mix with the beaten egg, flour, and salt.
Form the mixture into balls and roll them in flour.
Cook and fry
In one kettle, have boiling water; in another, boiling lard.
Drop the balls into the boiling water; when they rise to the surface, transfer them to the lard.
Fry until the balls are brown and cooked.
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.
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,978 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Form the bulk of the ball, giving it a starchy, soft interior once cooked.
- Egg
- Binds the grated potato together so the balls hold their shape.
- Flour
- Absorbs moisture and helps the outside set and brown during frying.
The step that matters
Transferring the balls from boiling water to boiling lard. The brief boiling water step helps the balls set so they hold together. If they are left too long, or the mixture is too wet, they can break apart in the hot fat.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Chivefits better
- Shallotfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour. 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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