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Potato Balls

A fried snack made from mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Balls

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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the balls

  1. Prepare the potatoes as you would for mashed potatoes and mash them very fine.

  2. Season the mashed potatoes with butter and coarse sea salt.

  3. Beat in the eggs until the mixture is very light.

  4. Shape the mixture into small balls, about the size of walnuts.

  5. Let the balls cool completely.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the balls in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the balls with bread crumbs.

  3. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling hot.

  4. Fry the balls until golden brown.

  5. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the starchy base that holds the shape of the balls.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness when set.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, moister interior.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the balls cool completely. Warm mashed potato is soft and sticky, so the balls can lose their shape or split. Chilling firms the starch and fat so the coating stays intact and the balls hold together in hot lard.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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