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Dessert

Potato Doughnots

Potato doughnuts are small fried balls made from mashed potatoes, seasonings, ham, egg, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Doughnots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the cold boiled potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, minced onion, chopped parsley, and grated ham.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in the beaten egg.

  3. Roll the egg-coated balls in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the doughnuts in boiling fat until golden brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the starchy base that holds the doughnut mixture together.
Beaten egg
Binds the balls and helps the cracker crumbs adhere as a coating.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Grated ham
Adds savory, salty flavor throughout the mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the doughnuts in boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy, while overly hot fat can brown the outside before the interior heats through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, parsley, ham, 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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