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Potato Sausages

A fried potato-based sausage made with mashed potatoes, eggs, breadcrumbs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the potatoes well with one of the beaten eggs.

  2. Add nutmeg, pepper, and salt to the mixture.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into sausage shapes.

  2. Roll the sausages in the remaining beaten egg and then in breadcrumbs.

Cook

  1. Fry the sausages until golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potato
Forms the bulk of the sausage and gives a soft, moist interior.
Eggs
Bind the mashed potato together and form a coating that helps the crumbs stick.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning and a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the sausages until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the potato heats through; too high a heat burns the crumbs before the centre warms.

Swap the potato

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

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

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