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Potato Balls

Fried balls made from mashed boiled potatoes, butter, milk or cream, salt, pepper, coated in flour and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato mixture

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add milk or cream and mix until smooth.

Coat and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Roll the balls in flour and then in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in butter or oil until light brown, using a frying pan or Dutch oven.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy base that mashes into a soft, cohesive mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the mash, and helps browning when used for frying.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture so the mash becomes smooth and easy to shape.
Flour
Forms a dry first coating that helps the breadcrumbs stick and aids browning.
Breadcrumbs
Create a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown. Frying in hot butter or oil browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction and crisps the surface. Frying too gently leaves the coating pale and greasy, while frying too hot can scorch it before the potato inside is heated through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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