Skip to main content
Main

American Croquettes

A fried croquette made from sweet potatoes, butter, eggs, spices, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

American Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil sweet potatoes in salted water until tender.

  2. Peel and pass the potatoes through a sieve.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Mix in butter, egg yolks, pepper, cinnamon, brown sugar, and cracker dust.

  2. Mold the mixture into small pear-shaped croquettes.

  3. Dip each croquette in egg and then in crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in deep oil until dark brown.

  2. Drain and garnish with a clove at one end and a sprig of parsley at the other.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the starchy, moist body that holds the croquette together and gives it its flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture in the mash.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the exterior brown during frying.
Cracker dust
Forms a dry, crisp coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until dark brown. The outer coating must be fully set and browned in hot oil; too little heat leaves the croquettes greasy and soft, while the sugar in the mixture can scorch if the oil is too hot.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, egg, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, egg, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, clove. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesRoasted Sweet PotatoesRoasted Sweet Potatoes62 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes