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Potato Balls

A fried ball of mashed potatoes, ham, parsley, shallot, and spices, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the potatoes with cream.

  2. Add grated ham, minced parsley, minced shallot, salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Bind the mixture with the yolks of 2 eggs.

Shape and fry

  1. Mould into balls.

  2. Fry in butter until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

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

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 mixture and give the balls their soft, starchy body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mashed potato soft and easy to shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Grated ham
Adds savoury flavour and salty depth throughout the balls.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the outside and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until browned. Frying over moderate heat lets the outside brown through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour and colour, while the inside heats through. Too little heat leaves the surface pale, and too much burns the butter before the centre is hot.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cream, ham, parsley, shallot, pepper, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cream, ham, parsley, shallot, pepper, egg. 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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