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Potato Dumplings

A dish of potato dumplings boiled in salted water, served hot with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mash or sieve the cooked potatoes.

  2. Add melted butter, egg yolks, flour, dissolved Marmite, and salt; mix into a smooth paste.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the potato mixture.

  4. Shape the mixture into small balls using a little flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the dumplings in fast-boiling salted water for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain and serve hot with tomato sauce.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cooked potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that holds the dumplings together.
Eggs
Whisked whites add lift and lightness, while yolks bind the mixture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Gives the paste structure so the dumplings hold their shape in water.
Marmite
Adds savoury, umami depth to the dumplings.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg whites. Overmixing knocks out the air in the stiffly whisked whites, leaving dense dumplings. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain, so the mixture stays light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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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