Skip to main content
Main

Potato Dumplings

Potato dumplings are boiled balls made from mashed potatoes, butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the potatoes in water with salt until done.

  2. Press the cooked potatoes through a potato press.

  3. Mix in the butter and let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the flour and egg yolks, then mix well.

  5. Form the mixture into small balls the size of an egg.

  6. Roll the balls in flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the dumplings in a large saucepan of salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove with a skimmer and serve.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the dumplings their body and soft texture.
Flour
Binds the mashed potato so the dumplings hold their shape while boiling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough together.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender, less dry crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour and egg yolks. Too much flour or overworking the dough makes dumplings dense and gummy, since gluten and extra starch toughen the texture. Mix just until combined.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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.

More potato dumplings recipes

German 8Boiled 3 See all 44 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes