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Small Potatoes

Small potatoes are boiled, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, then fried until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,978 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Small Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the small potatoes and boil them in salted water until just tender.

  2. Beat the egg in a bowl.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each potato in the beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the coated potatoes in lard over medium heat until they are light brown, turning frequently for even color.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Small potatoes
Provide the starchy filling that stays soft and tender inside the coating.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to the potatoes.
Fine cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and helps the coating turn golden and crisp.

The step that matters

Fry over medium heat and turn often. Medium heat lets the coating brown evenly while the potato heats through. Too high a heat browns the crumbs before the inside warms, and uneven turning gives patchy color.

“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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