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York Potato Cakes

A fried potato cake made with boiled potatoes, flour, butter, milk, and seasonings, served with bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

York Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mash 1 pound of cold boiled potatoes.

  2. Mix with 1 pound of flour and rub in some butter.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Moisten the mixture with enough milk to hold it together.

  5. Press the mixture well and roll it out on a floured board.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut into shapes and fry in hot fat until golden.

  2. Serve with a slice of grilled or fried bacon.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body of the dough.
Flour
Gives the mixture structure so it holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating the flour particles.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture binds together into a workable dough.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture with milk. Too little milk leaves the dough crumbly and hard to roll, while too much makes it sticky and hard to cut cleanly. Adding milk gradually until it just holds together gives a dough that rolls evenly and keeps its shape in the hot fat.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, 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.

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