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Meat and Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of meat and mashed potato coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Meat and Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a stew pan, melt the butter and sauté the minced onion until it simmers.

  2. Add the flour and stir until the mixture is smooth and frothy.

  3. Pour in the milk and season with salt and pepper; let it boil while stirring.

  4. Mix in the chopped meat and mashed potato thoroughly, then spread on a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool enough, shape the mixture into balls or rolls.

  2. Dip each in the beaten egg, then roll in cracker or bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot lard for about 2 minutes until golden brown.

  2. Remove with a skimmer and drain on brown paper. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main savoury filling and bulk of the croquette.
Mashed potato
Adds body and moisture so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the flour into a creamy binder.
Beaten egg
Binds the shaped mixture and helps the crumb coating adhere.
Butter
Fat that cooks the onion and adds richness to the binding sauce.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and falls apart when shaped and coated. Cooling lets the starch and flour set so the balls hold their form in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, meat, potato, egg. 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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