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Potato Patties

A baked potato patty made with grated potatoes, milk, butter, eggs, and bread lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the potatoes to a fine flour.

  2. Moisten the grated potatoes with a little milk.

  3. Beat the butter to a cream.

  4. Boil ¼ pint of milk. Stir the boiling milk into the potatoes.

  5. Mix until smooth over heat. Remove from heat and mix in 2 beaten eggs.

  6. Let cool.

  7. Beat in the yolks of 4 eggs.

  8. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small patty pans. Line the pans with grated bread.

  2. Fill the pans with the batter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until deep yellow.

  4. Serve immediately with fish or fowl.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Mealy potatoes
Grated starch that forms the body of the patties and absorbs the milk.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the patties structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it rise in the oven.
Butter
Creamed into the mixture to add richness and a tender texture.
Milk
Moistens the potatoes and softens the batter for a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg whites gently into the batter. Stiff egg white foam traps air that gives lift. Stirring it vigorously knocks out the air, so the patties bake flat and dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

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