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German Potato Dumplings

A dish of potato dumplings served with bacon, syrup, vinegar, and cornstarch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

German Potato Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, combine mashed potatoes, eggs, salt, melted butter, and sifted flour, and mix until well combined.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling salted water.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

Make the bacon sauce

  1. In a skillet, cook diced bacon until crispy, then pour off excess grease.

  2. Add corn or maple syrup, vinegar, and cornstarch mixed with a little water to the bacon.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve over the potato dumplings.

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 + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the bulk and starchy body that holds the dumpling together.
Eggs
Bind the potato and flour so the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Sifted flour
Adds starch that helps the dumplings set and keep their form in boiling water.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory, browned flavor to the sauce.
Corn or maple syrup
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cornstarch
Thickens the bacon sauce as it comes to a boil.

The step that matters

Drop the mixture into boiling water. The dough must go into vigorously boiling salted water so the starch on the outside sets quickly. If the water is not boiling, the dumplings can fall apart or turn soggy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, corn, vinegar. 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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