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Fried Potatoes

A batter of egg yolks, salt, oil, brandy, and flour or grated bread is used to coat sliced potatoes, which are then fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Potatoes

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, salt, oil, brandy, and enough flour or grated bread to create a thick batter.

  2. Slice the cold potatoes into large pieces.

Fry

  1. Dip each potato slice into the batter.

  2. Fry the battered slices in butter 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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

Egg yolks
Bind the batter and help it set and turn golden when fried.
Flour or grated bread
Thickens the batter so it coats the potato slices.
Brandy
Adds a light aroma to the batter.
Butter
Fries the coated slices, adding richness and browning.

The step that matters

Frying the battered slices. The batter must be thick enough to coat the potatoes; if the butter is too hot the coating browns before the potato cooks through, and if too cool the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, brandy, flour, 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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