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Potato and Bean Cakes

A fried or baked cake made from mashed potatoes, lima beans, and pimentoes, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato and Bean Cakes

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.

Shape the cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix the mashed potatoes, pimentoes, and lima beans.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Form the mixture into cakes.

Coat and cook

  1. Sauté the cakes in a small amount of hot fat.

  2. Dip the cakes in beaten egg and coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Brown the cakes in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato or cheese sauce.

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

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

  2. Lima beans + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + lima beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Starch that binds the mixture and gives the cakes a soft, tender body.
Lima beans
Adds starch and body, helping the cakes hold their shape while they cook.
Pimentoes
Adds mild sweet pepper flavor and a touch of colour to the cakes.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden coating that browns and crisps on the outside of the cakes.
Egg
Beaten egg helps the bread crumbs stick and adds binding to the coating.

The step that matters

Dip the cakes in beaten egg and coat with bread crumbs. The soft mashed mixture is fragile. The egg and crumb layer forms a coating that holds the cakes together and gives a crisp, browned surface when fried or baked.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, pepper, egg. 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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