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Potato Croquettes En Petites Boules

Small fried potato balls made from mashed potatoes, butter, egg yolk, and seasonings, coated in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes En Petites Boules

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Steam or boil the potatoes until well done, then drain and mash them.

  2. Mix in the butter and egg yolk, and season with salt and pepper. Do not add any milk or liquid.

  3. With floured hands, shape the mixture into small balls, no larger than walnuts, ensuring they are well coated in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep fryer to a hot temperature, then fry the croquettes until they are a deep yellow color.

  2. Drain the croquettes on a sieve before serving.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the starchy body of the croquettes once mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and softens the mash for a tender interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the mashed potato so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the outside brown and crisp when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to crisp and brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy before the coating sets.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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