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Potato Apples

A fried dish of mashed potatoes mixed with cheese, spices, and eggs, shaped like apples and coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the hot riced potatoes, grated cheese, and butter until smooth.

  2. Add cayenne, nutmeg, milk, and egg yolks; mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into small apple shapes.

  2. Make small dents for the stem and blossom end of each apple.

  3. Roll each apple in breadcrumbs, then dip in beaten egg, and roll in breadcrumbs again.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the shaped apples in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels, garnish, and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Riced potatoes
Provide the bulk of the mixture and a soft, starchy body that holds the apple shape.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and flavour and helps bind the mixture together.
Butter
Adds fat for smooth texture and richer flavour in the mixture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness that helps the shaped apples hold together.
Breadcrumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when the apples are fried.

The step that matters

Roll and coat the shaped apples before frying. The shaped mixture is soft and can break apart, so the breadcrumb, egg, and breadcrumb coating must be applied evenly to form a sealed crust that holds the shape and browns well in hot fat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, cheese, butter, milk, egg. 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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