Skip to main content
Main

English Potato Balls

A dish of mashed potato balls coated in vermicelli and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mash

  1. Boil the potatoes until very dry, then mash them smoothly.

  2. Season the mash with salt and white pepper, then warm with butter.

  3. If using cream, stir it in and ensure the mixture remains dry.

Shape and coat

  1. Let the mixture cool slightly, then roll it into balls.

  2. Coat the balls with crushed vermicelli.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in hot oil until they are light brown.

  2. Serve the balls around a mound of plain mashed potatoes or on a napkin.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Potato + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. White pepper + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Floury potatoes
Their high starch and dry texture give the mash a light, fluffy body that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mash and carrying flavour.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mash, though it must be stirred in carefully to keep the mixture dry.
Vermicelli
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Keep the mash dry. Potatoes that are not boiled until very dry hold extra water, which makes the mash soft and sticky. Wet mash is hard to roll and can break apart or absorb too much oil in the hot frying oil.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, cream. 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.

More potato balls recipes

Fried 12Sweet 9English 7Baked 6Oyster 4Ragout 4 See all 126 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes