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Cheese and Bread Patties

Cheese and bread patties are fried or baked balls made from grated cheese, mashed potatoes, bread crumbs, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese and Bread Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix grated cheese, cold mashed potatoes, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs.

  2. Whisk the egg and add half to the mixture.

  3. Flour a surface and form the mixture into small balls.

  4. Dip each ball in the remaining egg.

Cook

  1. Fry in boiling fat or bake in a greased tin, turning occasionally until golden 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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Adds rich flavour and helps bind the patties as it softens.
Cold mashed potatoes
Provides body and moisture so the patties hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the patties a firmer, lighter structure.
Egg
Binds the mixture and creates a coating that helps the patties brown.

The step that matters

Forming and coating the balls. Mixture that is too wet will not hold its shape, while overly dry mixture cracks and falls apart. Chilling the cold mashed potatoes keeps the mixture firm enough to shape neatly.

Swap the potato

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

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

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