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Potatoes, Beignets of

A fried potato fritter made with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, brandy, egg, and coated in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potatoes, Beignets of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Bake the potatoes until soft.

  2. Remove the skins and mash them.

  3. Pound the mashed potatoes with salt, cream, butter, brandy, and the beaten egg until thick.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Brush the balls with egg.

  3. Fry them in hot oil until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve with sifted sugar on top.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that becomes soft and mouldable once baked and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture in the mash.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mash tender rather than dry.
Egg
Binds the mash so the fritters hold their shape, and the brushed egg helps browning.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a little flavour to the potato mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mash is sticky and hard to form into balls. Cooling firms it so the fritters keep their shape in the hot oil instead of collapsing or breaking apart.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, brandy, egg, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, brandy, egg, sugar. 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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