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Dessert

Potato Puffs

A fried snack made from mashed potatoes, milk, egg, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine mashed potato, milk, egg, and baking powder.

  2. Add flour gradually until the mixture is soft.

  3. Roll the mixture into finger-sized strips.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the strips in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Serve warm with butter or syrup.

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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Mashed potato
Provides the bulk and starch that give the puffs their soft, tender interior.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the strips hold their shape while frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts, helping the puffs rise and turn light inside.
Flour
Adds structure so the mixture becomes soft enough to roll but still holds together.
Milk
Adds moisture that keeps the dough soft and helps it bind with the potato.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the strips absorb oil and turn greasy and heavy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady high heat sets the outside quickly while the inside cooks through and puffs.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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