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Potato Dumplings

A batter of eggs, baking powder, sweet milk, and flour is dropped into boiling potatoes to form dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, baking powder, sweet milk, and a pinch of salt.

  2. Add enough flour to create a very stiff batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Peel and cook the potatoes in enough water to cover them, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Ten minutes before the potatoes are done, drop spoonfuls of the batter into the pot.

  3. Cover the pot tightly to prevent steam from escaping and boil for ten minutes.

  4. Serve the dumplings with the potatoes and gravy.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the dumplings as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the dumplings rise and turn light.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the stiff batter its body and hold the dumplings together.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the batter so it mixes into a dough that cooks through.
Potatoes
Serve as the starchy base dish alongside the dumplings.

The step that matters

Cover the pot tightly and boil. Trapping steam keeps the heat steady and moist so the dumplings cook through and rise. If the lid is loose, steam escapes, the temperature drops, and the dumplings can turn dense or soggy.

Swap the potato

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

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

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