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Pancakes of Raw Potatoes

A batter of grated potatoes, eggs, and flour is fried into light brown pancakes.

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

Pancakes of Raw Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Peel and grate the potatoes to make about 1 quart.

  2. Press out the water through a cloth.

  3. Add the egg yolks, flour, and salt to the grated potatoes and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg whites until frothy and fold into the mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat clarified butter or lard in a pan over low heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan and fry until light brown on both sides.

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
Form the bulk of the pancake and give it a starchy, tender body.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness and tenderness.
Flour
Helps bind the grated potato so the pancakes hold their shape.
Egg whites
Whipped to froth and folded in, they add lightness to the batter.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water from the potatoes. Excess water dilutes the batter and turns steam in the pan, which keeps pancakes soggy and stops them from browning crisply.

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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