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German Potato Pancakes

A savory dish of grated potatoes and onions mixed with eggs, flour, and sugar, pan‑fried into golden pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

German Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the potatoes and onion finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated potatoes and onion with the eggs, sugar, flour, and salt. Mix until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add oil.

  2. Spoon the mixture into the skillet and flatten into pancakes. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. 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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the pancake and give it a starchy, tender interior.
Eggs
Bind the grated potato together so the pancakes hold their shape.
Flour
Absorbs excess moisture from the potato and helps the pancakes hold together.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Spoon the mixture into the skillet and flatten into pancakes. Grated potato releases water and starts to darken quickly, so the batter should be cooked promptly in hot oil. Enough oil and steady medium heat help the pancakes brown evenly and crisp rather than steam or burn.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, sugar, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, sugar, flour. 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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