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Potato Patties

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

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wash the potatoes, then grate them on a coarse grater.

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated potatoes, eggs, yeast (or baking powder), salt, milk, and flour. Mix well.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until smoking hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard and fry until brown and crisp, like doughnuts.

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. Egg + milktop 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 patty and moisture that steams inside while the outside fries.
Eggs
Bind the grated potato together so the patties hold their shape.
Quick yeast or baking powder
Lifts the batter with gas bubbles so the patties are lighter inside.
Flour
Adds starch that thickens the batter and helps the patties crisp and brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Heating the lard until smoking hot before frying. Hot fat seals the outside of each spoonful quickly, so the patties brown and crisp rather than soaking up grease and turning heavy. Starting with cool fat makes them greasy and dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

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

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