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Potato Balls

A dish of boiled potato balls seasoned with salt and parsley, cooked in butter or other fats.

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 parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the potatoes and place them in a pan of cold water.

  2. Using a French vegetable cutter, cut the potatoes into balls or cubes and let them stand in cold, salted water until needed.

Cook

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the potato balls, cover, and cook slowly, shaking the pan to cook them evenly.

  3. Test for doneness with a darning needle.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, add salt and chopped parsley, or boil, drain, and add Maitre d'Hotel Butter, or fry in deep hot fat like French fried potatoes.

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

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes (in the method)
Form the main body of the dish, cooking into a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the potatoes brown gently in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and shake the pan. Slow cooking in a covered pan with fat lets the potato centres cook through without scorching the outside. Shaking the pan turns the balls so they heat evenly and do not stick or burn on one side.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, 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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