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Potato Pancakes

A fried potato pancake made with grated potatoes, flour, eggs, and salt, served with tomato preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Pare the potatoes and soak them in cold water overnight.

  2. Grate the potatoes in the morning and drain off as much water as possible.

Make and cook the pancakes

  1. Add coarse sea salt, flour, and beaten eggs to the grated potatoes.

  2. Heat butter in a griddle.

  3. Pour in the potato mixture, spreading it thin.

  4. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato preserves.

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 + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Starch that gives the pancakes their bulk and crisp, golden texture when fried.
Eggs
Bind the grated potato together and help hold the pancake's shape while it cooks.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the grated potato hold together in the pan.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Drain the grated potatoes well. Excess water dilutes the batter and turns to steam in the pan, which keeps the pancakes soft and pale instead of crisp and browned. Removing it lets the surface fry and brown properly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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