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Potato Fritters

A fried potato mixture with breadcrumbs, eggs, herbs, and optional milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the potatoes.

  2. Incorporate the bread crumbs, butter, beaten eggs, and herbs.

  3. If the mixture is too dry, moisten with a little milk.

Fry

  1. Mould into balls, flatten them, and fry in butter or oil.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 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 fritter and give a soft, tender interior.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the outside brown when frying.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the fritters hold their shape.

The step that matters

Moisten only if the mixture is too dry. Adding too much milk makes the mixture sticky and hard to shape, while too little leaves it crumbly. Potatoes and crumbs absorb liquid differently, so add milk gradually and check the texture before adding more.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, butter, egg, parsley, pepper, 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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