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Meat and Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of meat and mashed potato mixed with butter, onion, flour, and milk, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 stewpan, melt the butter and sauté the minced onion until it simmers.

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

  3. Pour in the milk, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil while stirring.

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

Shape and fry

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

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

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

  4. Remove with a skimmer and drain on brown paper.

  5. Serve 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onion and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the mixture together.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a thick sauce that gives the croquettes moisture.
Cold meat
Provides the main savory filling and body of the croquettes.
Mashed potato
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold its shape when cooled.
Beaten egg
Coats the shapes so the crumbs adhere and set into a crisp crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and loosens as it cools, so shaping it too early makes it hard to form and prone to cracking. Chilling firms the starch and fat so the shapes hold together in the hot lard.

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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