Name: Meat and Potato Croquettes
Ingredients: 1 cup cold meat, chopped fine; 1 cup cold mashed potatoes; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ⅓ cup milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 eggs; Dried bread crumbs; Fat for frying

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Meat and Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the meat, potatoes, and seasoning in a bowl.
In a frying pan, heat the milk and butter until boiling.
Add the meat and potato mixture to the pan and cook for 1 minute.
Beat one egg and stir it into the hot mixture.
Remove from heat and pour onto a plate to cool.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Potatothe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Tomatofits less well

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