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Potato Balls

A dish of boiled potato balls served in soup or with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil potatoes in their skins, then let them cool and peel.

  2. Grate the peeled potatoes.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then mix in the egg yolks and salt.

  2. Add enough grated potato to form a stiff paste, then fold in a little beaten egg white.

  3. Rub your hands with flour and roll the mixture into small balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the balls until they float to the surface.

  2. Serve in white soup or with white sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the dough.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness to the dough.
Grated potatoes
Form the bulk of the dough, giving body to the balls.
Egg white
Lightens the paste slightly and helps it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Forming the stiff paste. Too little grated potato leaves the mixture too soft to roll, while too much makes it dense and dry. Folding the egg white in gently keeps some air in the paste so the balls stay tender.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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