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Genuine Potato Pancakes

A fried potato pancake made with grated potatoes, eggs, onion, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Genuine Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Pare and wash the potatoes, then grate them.

  2. Add the eggs, grated onion, salt, and flour to the grated potatoes, mixing thoroughly without pouring off the water.

Fry

  1. Heat the fat in a frying pan until very hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat.

  3. Turn the pancakes over repeatedly until they are crisp and 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Potatoes
Form the main body of the pancake and, once grated, provide starch that crisps when fried.
Eggs
Bind the grated potato together so the pancakes hold their shape.
Onion
Adds savory flavor to the batter.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the batter hold together.

The step that matters

Heat the fat until very hot before adding the batter. Hot fat sears the outside of the batter quickly, forming a crisp crust and limiting oil absorption. Cool fat lets the batter soak up grease and turn soggy and heavy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, flour. 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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