Name: Sweet Potato Croquettes
Ingredients: 1 pint riced or mashed sweet potatoes; 3 tablespoons butter; ½ teaspoon salt; hot milk (enough to moisten)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

1 pint riced or mashed sweet potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
hot milk (enough to moisten)

Directions

In a bowl, combine the riced or mashed sweet potatoes with butter and salt.
Add hot milk gradually until the mixture is moistened.
Beat the mixture until light and fluffy.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together596 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

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