Skip to main content
Main

Potato Dumplings

Potato dumplings served in tomato soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dumplings

  1. Mix grated potatoes, flour, egg, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Form small dumplings from the mixture and roll them in flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring tomato soup to a boil.

  2. Add the dumplings to the boiling soup and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve the soup immediately with the dumplings.

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

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

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Grated potatoes
Provide the starchy body that gives the dumplings their bulk and texture.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and binds the mixture so the dumplings hold their shape.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the dumplings hold together while cooking.

The step that matters

Add the dumplings to the boiling soup. The soup must be at a full boil when the dumplings go in, so the outside sets quickly and they do not fall apart or turn soggy. Keep the cooking time as written to avoid overcooking.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

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

More potato dumplings recipes

You might also like