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Potato Dumplings

A boiled dumpling made from mashed potatoes, bread cubes, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Potato Dumplings

6 dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets until done, then peel while hot.

  2. Mash the potatoes finely and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry the bread cubes in pork drippings or butter until browned.

  4. Add the fried bread cubes and the unbeaten egg to the mashed potatoes, stirring thoroughly.

  5. Add flour until the mixture is stiff enough to handle.

  6. Mould the mixture into 6 dumplings.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop the dumplings into boiling salted water or soup and boil for 25 minutes.

  2. Ensure they do not stick to the bottom of the pot and keep the water boiling.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the starchy body of the dumpling, giving a soft, fluffy interior when mashed.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Bread cubes
Fried until browned, they add texture and a toasty aroma inside the dumpling.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and stiffens the dough so it can be shaped and hold together.
Pork drippings or butter
Fat that browns the bread cubes, adding richness and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Add flour until the mixture is stiff enough to handle. Too little flour leaves the dough wet, so dumplings may fall apart in the boiling water; too much makes them dense and heavy, because starch absorbs liquid and firms up with extra handling.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, pork, 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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