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Potato Rolls

Baked flat cakes made from mashed potatoes, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Rolls

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Season the mashed potatoes with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the egg yolk and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into flat cakes.

  2. Place the cakes in a baking pan.

  3. Brush the tops with egg white.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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.

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.

  1. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the body of the cakes and hold their shape with moisture and starch.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato mixture so the cakes hold together when shaped and baked.
Egg white
Brushed on top, it helps the surface brown and gives a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Brushing the tops with egg white. Egg white proteins set and brown in the oven, so an even coat gives uniform colour and a glossy surface. Patchy coverage leads to uneven browning.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, 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 cakes recipes

Irish 4Mashed 4Sweet 4Fried 3Viennese 3 See all 131 →

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