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Potato Balls

Fried potato balls made from mashed potatoes, egg, butter, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Season the hot mashed potatoes with coarse sea salt, black pepper, celery salt, and butter.

  2. Moisten the potatoes with a little hot cream or milk if needed.

  3. Beat the egg until light and mix part of it into the potatoes.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into smooth round balls.

  2. Brush the balls with the remaining egg and fry in hot oil until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the balls and set the texture once shaped and fried.
Egg
Binds the potato mixture and, brushed on top, helps the balls brown when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potatoes.
Hot cream or milk
Loosens the potatoes so they are moist enough to shape smoothly.

The step that matters

Shaping the balls while the potatoes are still hot. Potatoes firm up and stiffen as they cool, so cold mash cracks and resists shaping. Keeping the mixture warm, and moistening it with hot liquid, helps it form smooth balls that hold together in the hot oil.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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