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Potato Cakes

A fried dish of mashed potatoes shaped into cakes, coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shape the mashed potatoes into round flat cakes.

  2. Dip each cake in flour.

  3. Brush over with beaten egg.

  4. Coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat or clarified butter until golden.

  2. Drain, garnish with fried parsley, and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the main body of the cake, giving it a soft, tender interior.
Flour
Dry the surface so the egg and crumbs adhere evenly.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue that holds the bread crumbs to the cake.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during frying.
Hot fat or clarified butter
Conducts heat to crisp and brown the outside of the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat until golden. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Hot fat quickly sets the crumb crust, sealing the cake and creating the golden colour and crisp texture.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, butter, parsley. 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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