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Potato Croquettes

A fried potato croquette made with butter, eggs, and breadcrumbs, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potato base

  1. Boil the peeled potatoes until tender, then drain.

  2. Pass the potatoes through a fine colander and mix in butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes on a floured surface.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten eggs, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot lard until golden brown, then drain.

  2. Serve garnished with fried parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the soft, starchy body of the croquettes once mashed and mixed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smoother, softer texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mashed potato so the croquettes hold their shape and stay tender.
Beaten eggs
Act as a sticky layer that helps bread crumbs adhere to the outside.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the crumb coating and adding savory fat.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy and pale, and the crumb coating may fall off. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, so the inside stays creamy while the outside browns.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, bread, parsley. 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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