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Cold Mashed Potatoes a l'Anglaise

Cold mashed potato balls fried until golden, served with fried parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cold Mashed Potatoes a l'Anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stir the eggs into the cold mashed potatoes.

  2. Add the spices, salt, pepper, and minced parsley; mix well.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls or desired shapes.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat each ball with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Serve garnished with fried parsley.

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the balls and hold their shape when chilled and bound.
Eggs
Bind the potato mixture so the balls hold together while frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the balls in hot oil.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp, and the balls may break apart. Enough heat browns the crumbs quickly, sealing the outside.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, parsley, 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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