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Potato Balls

A fried snack made from mashed potatoes, egg, flour, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potato Balls

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make and shape

  1. Mix mashed potatoes with the yolk of one egg.

  2. Roll the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the balls in flour or dip in egg and roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in good drippings until light 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the balls and provide a soft, moist interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Creates a dry surface that helps the coating adhere and brown.
Bread crumbs
Add a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry until light brown. The coating needs enough heat to brown and crisp without burning. Too low a heat lets the balls absorb grease and turn soggy, while too high a heat browns the outside before the potato heats through.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, 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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