Name: Beef and Potato Cakes
Ingredients: 2 cups cold mashed potatoes; 2 cups finely chopped beef; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Bread crumbs, for coating; Oil, for frying

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef and Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine cold mashed potatoes, chopped beef, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper. Mix well until fully combined.
Shape the mixture into cakes.
Coat each cake in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

Heat oil in a pan over medium heat and fry the cakes until golden brown.
Serve with your choice of sauce or plain.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes: Bind the mixture and give the cakes a soft, moist interior.
Beef: Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the cakes.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden crust during frying.
Onion: Adds savory aroma and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry over medium heat until golden brown. Medium heat lets the bread crumb coating brown and crisp while the interior heats through. Too high a heat browns the outside before the beef cooks through, and too low a heat leaves the coating pale and greasy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, beef, onion, pepper, bread):

Garlicfits better
Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beef, onion, pepper, bread. 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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Beef and Potato Cakes