Name: Potato Balls
Ingredients: lean uncooked mutton or beef, minced very finely; coarse sea salt; black pepper; ¼ teaspoon ground ginger; mashed potatoes, smooth and lump-free; eggs, sufficient to make a soft paste; clarified butter for frying

Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Balls

Ingredients

lean uncooked mutton or beef, minced very finely
coarse sea salt
black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
mashed potatoes, smooth and lump-free
eggs, sufficient to make a soft paste
clarified butter for frying

Directions

In a bowl, combine the minced meat with salt, pepper, and ground ginger.
Form the mixture into balls the size of a large walnut.
Mix the mashed potatoes with enough eggs to create a soft paste.
Wrap the meat balls in the potato mixture, about ⅓ inch thick.
Heat plenty of clarified butter in a pan until boiling.
Fry the potato-wrapped meat balls in the hot butter 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.

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.

Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ginger + potatotop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together992 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Swap the ginger

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

Parsleyfits better
Nutmegfits better
Thymefits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, potato, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.