Name: Potatoe Rolls and Balls
Ingredients: prepared potatoes; crumbs or yolk of egg; minced ragout of mushroom or shellfish or cold meats; butter; fried parsley; seasoned stock; flour (optional); ale or beer (optional)

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoe Rolls and Balls

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.

Make the potato batter firmer and form into rolls or balls.
Fry them using crumbs or yolk of egg, or mix with minced ragout and cover with prepared potatoes.
Butter small tart pans and bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or fry them.
Serve on fried parsley or pour over seasoned meat in a pie-dish as a batter pudding.
For a savory paste, use well-seasoned stock instead of cream or milk, adding flour if too thin.

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.

Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together968 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + beertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the parsley

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

Thymefits about as well
Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, mushroom, butter, flour, beer. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.