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Potato Fritters

A fried potato cake made with onions, pepper, salt, egg, and butter, served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the cold potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the chopped onion, pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Shape the mixture into small cakes.

  4. Brush the cakes with beaten egg.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve with brown sauce.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold potatoes
Form the bulk of the fritters and give them a soft, starchy interior.
Egg
Binds the mixture and, brushed on the outside, helps the cakes brown.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and promotes golden browning on the surface.
Chopped onion
Adds moisture and a savoury, aromatic flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown. Butter contains milk solids that can burn before the cakes are cooked through. Medium heat and watching the colour keep the browning even without bitterness, and the shaped cakes need to be firm enough to hold together in the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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