Skip to main content
Main

Potato Puff

A fried batter made from mashed potatoes, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Add the milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Mix until you have a stiff batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into boiling lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provide the bulk of the batter and a soft, moist interior.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Gives the stiff batter structure so the puffs hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the puffs rise and turn light.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the batter to add lift and aid browning.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter into boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the outside of each spoonful quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat, becomes greasy, and may not puff properly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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.

More potato puff recipes

Balls 5Sweet 3 See all 118 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes