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Another Way to Make Potato Eggs

A dish of mashed potatoes shaped like eggs, brushed with beaten egg and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Potato Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes until smooth.

  2. Add butter, cream, salt, and minced onions; mix well.

Shape and brown

  1. Shape the mixture into egg or small potato forms.

  2. Brush the shapes with the beaten egg.

  3. Place them on a dish in a dripping pan.

  4. Carefully turn them until browned evenly.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the shapes and give a soft, smooth body when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture so the mashed potato mixture holds a soft, smooth consistency.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the potato mixture.
Beaten egg
Coats the shapes so they brown evenly and take on a golden surface.

The step that matters

Carefully turn them until browned evenly. The coated shapes are delicate and can break or lose their form when turned. Gentle handling keeps them intact, and steady heat with patience lets the egg coating set and brown evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream, 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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