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Potato Pancakes

A fried potato pancake made with grated potato, flour, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour and salt with the grated potato.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

Fry the pancakes

  1. Heat enough lard in a frying pan to cover the bottom.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard, spreading them slightly.

  3. Cook as many pancakes as the pan will hold, keeping the fat hot and adding more as needed.

  4. Brown the pancakes thoroughly, turning to brown 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. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg 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

Grated raw potato
Forms the bulk of the pancake and provides its starchy, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the grated potato together and help the pancakes hold their shape.
Flour
Absorbs moisture from the potato and helps the batter hold together.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the pancakes.

The step that matters

Keep the fat hot when frying. If the lard is not hot enough, the pancakes absorb more fat and turn greasy and pale instead of crisping and browning. Adding pancakes to a crowded pan cools the fat, so cooking in batches keeps the temperature up.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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