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Potato Balls

Fried balls made from boiled potatoes, butter, milk, egg yolk, parsley, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato mixture

  1. Rub the cold boiled potatoes through a wire sieve into a stew-pan.

  2. Add the butter and milk, then heat over the fire until smooth.

  3. Stir in pepper, salt, egg yolk, and chopped parsley.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then form it into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the balls with egg white.

  2. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that holds the mixture together and gives it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the potato for a smooth texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooled and shaped.
Egg white
Gives the bread crumb coating a glue-like layer so it sticks to the balls.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the crumb coating absorbs oil and turns greasy, while the potato interior may not heat through. Oil that is hot enough seals the crust quickly, so the coating browns before the filling can soften and leak out.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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