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Fried Potato Cakes

A fried or baked cake made from mashed Irish potatoes, butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

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

Fried Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the Irish potatoes until tender, then mash them finely.

  2. Season the mashed potatoes with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Flour your hands and form small rolls of the potato mixture.

  4. Flatten each roll to about ¼ inch thick.

Cook

  1. Fry the cakes in lard until golden brown, or bake on a greased griddle until browned.

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Irish potatoes
Form the main body of the cakes, becoming soft and mashable when boiled until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mashed potato a softer, smoother texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Flatten each roll to about ¼ inch thick. Even thickness lets the cakes cook through at the same rate, so the outside browns without the centre staying raw or cold.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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