Why it works: Potato and cheese work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 959 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Naples Potato
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Mash the boiled potatoes with a fork until light.
Mix in the grated cheese and egg yolk.
Form the mixture into balls.
Fry
Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown.
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.
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Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together959 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,253 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,978 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Boiled potatoes
- Provides the starchy bulk that gives the balls their soft, light body.
- Grated cheese
- Adds savoury flavour and richness, and its fat helps the balls brown.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the mashed potato and cheese so the balls hold their shape.
The step that matters
Fry in hot oil until golden brown. Hot oil browns and sets the outside quickly, so the balls hold their shape and absorb less oil. If the oil is too cool, the balls soak up grease and can fall apart.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg):
- Asparagusfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Welsh onionfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg. 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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