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French Potato Cakes

A fried cake made from mashed potatoes, butter, cheese, eggs, and seasonings, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

French Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Add the butter, grated cheese, salt, pepper, and beaten eggs; mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Form the mixture into flat cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in boiling fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve as a border or mound, garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the cakes, giving them a soft, starchy body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their flat shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the surface brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb more fat and turn greasy before a crisp golden crust forms.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, pepper, egg, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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