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Potato Balls

Potato Balls are boiled potatoes mixed with butter or dripping, egg, parsley, pepper, and salt, shaped into balls and cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Peel and mash the potatoes through a sieve.

  3. Add dripping or butter, parsley, egg, pepper, and salt.

Shape and cook

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Cover the balls with egg and breadcrumbs.

  3. Brown the balls in the oven.

  4. Fry the balls in boiling fat.

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 balls and give them a soft, starchy body.
Egg
Binds the mashed potato so the balls hold their shape.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, moister interior.

The step that matters

Shape and coat the balls. If the mixture is too wet or the balls are not sealed with egg and breadcrumbs, they can break or absorb too much fat when frying. Light flouring of the hands keeps the mixture from sticking while shaping.

“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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