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Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from seasoned mashed potatoes shaped into balls and coated in breadcrumbs.

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

  1. Season cold mashed potatoes with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Beat in 1 tablespoon of melted butter for every cup of potato until creamy.

  3. Bind the mixture with 2-3 beaten eggs and add minced parsley.

  4. Roll the mixture into oval balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard or drippings until golden.

Serve

  1. Pile the croquettes in a pyramid on a flat dish and serve.

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

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, tender interior.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the potato mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when rolled and fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard or drippings until golden. If the fat is not hot enough, the coated croquettes absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy instead of crisping. Hot fat quickly sets the crumb coating and browns the outside before the inside overheats.

Swap the potato

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

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

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