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Potato Puffs

A baked dish of mashed potato balls brushed with egg and browned, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the potatoes as directed for mashed potatoes.

  2. While hot, shape the potatoes into balls about the size of an egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the balls on a well-greased baking sheet.

  2. Brush the balls with the beaten egg.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  4. Use a knife to loosen them and slide onto a hot platter.

  5. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

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. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the body of each puff, holding its shape while it bakes.
Egg
Brushed on the surface, it promotes browning and a glossy finish in the oven.

The step that matters

Shape the potatoes while hot. Warm mashed potatoes are pliable and bind together easily. Once they cool and stiffen, they crack and resist forming smooth balls that hold their shape during baking.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley. 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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