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Potato Cakes

Fried cakes made from boiled potatoes, flour, egg yolk, and butter, coated in a butter‑milk batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix minced potatoes with salt, flour, egg yolk, and butter until combined.

  2. If the mixture is too dry, add milk until it holds together but is soft.

  3. Shape the potato mixture into four round flat cakes.

Batter and fry

  1. In a separate saucer, combine melted butter, cold milk, and flour to make a batter.

  2. Dip each cake in the batter carefully to avoid breaking.

  3. Fry the cakes in hot butter or salt-pork drippings until golden brown.

  4. If any batter remains, pour it over the cakes before flipping them.

  5. Use a pancake turner to flip the cakes and garnish with parsley before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 cake, giving body and a soft, starchy interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the mashed potato so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and browns the outside of the cakes when fried.
All-purpose flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the potato mixture bind into cakes that hold together.

The step that matters

Dip each cake in the batter carefully to avoid breaking.. The cold, soft potato mixture is fragile, and rough handling can crack the cakes. Keeping them intact preserves an even coating that browns evenly when fried.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, egg, butter, milk. 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.

More potato cakes recipes

Irish 4Mashed 4Sweet 4Fried 3Viennese 3 See all 131 →

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