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Parsnip Balls

A fried ball of mashed parsnips, butter, milk, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Parsnip Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the cold mashed parsnips, pepper, salt, and milk.

  3. Stir over heat until it begins to bubble.

  4. Remove from heat and add one beaten egg to bind the mixture.

  5. Once cool, form the mixture into balls about half the size of an egg.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the balls in egg.

  2. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper in a vegetable dish and serve.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Form the bulk of the balls and give them their main flavour and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that sets and browns in the fat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls soak up oil and turn greasy before the crust sets and the inside heats through.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, bread, 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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