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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, butter, milk, and salt, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sweet Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, butter, milk, and salt. Mix until well combined and let the mixture cool.

  2. Once cool, mold the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each ball in beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in deep lard until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and mild sweetness of the croquettes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape, and help the coating stick.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more tender interior.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. Warm sweet potato mixture is soft and sticky, so it is hard to mold and may fall apart. Cooling firms it and lets the egg set slightly, so the balls hold their shape through coating and frying.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk. 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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