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Potato Balls

Small fried balls made from mashed potatoes, parsley, chives, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Potato and chive work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 611 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare mashed potatoes.

  2. Mix in chopped parsley, chopped chives, and egg yolk.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls, about 1 inch in diameter.

  2. Fry the balls until they are a nice light 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.

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. Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together611 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Chive + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 balls and give them a soft, tender interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the potato mixture.
Chives
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavor to the potato mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until light brown. Frying at the right heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavor and a crisp surface. Too little heat leaves the balls greasy and pale, while too much browns the outside before the interior heats through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, chive, egg. 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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