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Potato Fritters

A fried potato patty made with mashed potatoes, eggs, milk, flour, butter, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine mashed potatoes, beaten eggs, and milk in a bowl.

  2. Add flour and melted butter, mixing until smooth.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then flip to cook the other side.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the fritters hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Thickens the batter so the fritters hold together rather than spreading in the pan.
Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, moist interior of the fritters.
Milk
Loosens the batter to a spoonable consistency and adds moisture.
Melted butter
Adds richness and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard.. Frying in hot fat sets the outside quickly and browns it, so the fritters do not absorb excess grease or fall apart. Lard that is not hot enough makes them greasy and soft.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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