Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Potato Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Season the cold mashed potatoes.
Cut and mold the potatoes into small cakes.
Fry the cakes in hot butter until they are a light brown color.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mashed potatoes
- Form the body of the cakes, holding their shape while they cook.
- Butter
- Conducts heat for frying and gives the cakes a light brown surface and rich flavor.
The step that matters
Frying the cakes in hot butter. Butter browns quickly and can burn if it is too hot. Medium heat lets the cakes cook through and brown evenly without darkening too fast on the outside.
“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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