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Potato Balls

A fried dish of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, salt, nutmeg, and eggs, formed into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes until very dry and floury.

  2. Mash the potatoes until smooth while they are still warm.

  3. Mix in the butter, salt, nutmeg, and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into a pan of boiling butter, ghee, or lard.

  2. Fry the balls for about 5 minutes until they are a fine pale 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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Starch forms the bulk of the balls; dryness and floury texture keep the mixture light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the mashed potato into a cohesive mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped air folded in gives the balls a lighter, more open texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mixture and fat for frying.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding preserves the air whipped into the egg whites; vigorous stirring deflates them and makes the balls dense rather than light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, egg. 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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