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Potato Cakes

A fried dish of mashed potato cakes mixed with egg yolk, flour, 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

four cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cakes

  1. Mince the cold potatoes very fine in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and flour, then mix with the egg yolk and butter.

  3. If too dry, add milk to achieve a soft consistency.

  4. Mold the mixture into four round flat cakes.

Batter and fry

  1. In a saucer, make a batter with melted butter, cold milk, and flour.

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

  3. Fry in hot butter or salt‑pork drippings until golden brown.

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

  5. Use a pancake turner to flip the cakes.

  6. 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 body of the cakes, giving them their bulk and soft interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their round shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the cakes brown when fried.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cakes hold together and form a crust.

The step that matters

Dip each cake in the batter carefully. The cakes are soft and fragile after shaping, so rough handling can crack them and make them fall apart in the pan. Gentle dipping keeps the shape intact.

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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