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Potato Eggs

A fried mixture of mashed potato, minced meat, eggs, butter, and gravy formed into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Work the mashed potato smooth with butter, milk, gravy, and beaten eggs.

  2. Put the mixture into a saucepan and stir over the heat until smoking hot.

  3. Stir in the minced meat and let it cool enough to handle.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into egg-shaped balls.

  2. Roll the balls in flour and fry in hot dripping.

  3. Serve on a hot dish.

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

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

  5. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mashed potato
Forms the bulk of the fritters and gives a soft, tender interior.
Beaten eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set when heated.
Minced meat
Adds savory flavor and substance to the potato base.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the potato mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until smoking hot. Heating the potato and egg mixture sets the eggs and dries the mixture slightly, so the balls hold their shape when shaped and fried. Undercooked eggs stay loose and can make the fritters fall apart.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits less well

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