Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Mash the cold boiled potatoes.
Form the mashed potatoes into flat cakes.
Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold boiled potatoes
- Form the structure of the cakes and provide most of their body and moisture.
- Butter
- Conducts heat for frying and helps the outside turn golden brown.
The step that matters
Frying the cakes in butter until golden brown. Butter browns at a lower temperature than oil and can burn if the pan is too hot. Moderate heat lets the surface brown while the inside heats through and the cakes hold their shape.
“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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