Skip to main content
Main

Potato Cakes

A quick savory dish of mashed potato mixed with egg yolk, formed into cakes and sautéed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg yolk until light.

  2. Mix the egg yolk with the mashed potato, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add cream only if the mashed potato is too dry.

Form and cook

  1. Form the mixture into small, flat, round cakes.

  2. Sauté the cakes in hot fat or dripping until golden 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.

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

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

  2. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Mashed potato
Forms the body of the cakes, giving bulk and a soft, tender interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato so the cakes hold their shape while cooking.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness to mashed potato that has become too dry.

The step that matters

Sautéing the cakes in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the surface quickly. Browning creates flavour and a crisp crust, and cooking fast keeps the cakes from absorbing too much fat or falling apart.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, pepper. 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.

More potato cakes recipes

Irish 4Mashed 4Sweet 4Fried 3Viennese 3 See all 131 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes