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Potato Apples

Potato apples are fried potato balls flavored with butter, egg, salt, and cayenne pepper, each pierced with a clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potato Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato balls

  1. Boil the potatoes for about 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes while hot.

  3. Add butter, beaten egg, salt, and cayenne pepper to the mashed potatoes.

  4. Form the mixture into balls resembling apples.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the balls in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Insert a clove into each end of the fried balls.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the balls, giving a soft, starchy interior when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mash and adding flavour.
Egg
Binds the mashed potato so the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in deep fat until golden brown. Frying at a steady, hot temperature browns the outside quickly and sets a crisp crust before the inside absorbs excess oil. Too cool a fat makes the balls greasy and prone to breaking apart.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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