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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, egg, and 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: Sweet potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,015 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes until tender.

  2. Remove the skins and mash the potatoes until smooth.

  3. Mix in the butter, salt, and pepper.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in the egg.

  3. Coat each croquette with cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot 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. Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sweet potato + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together843 recipes

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

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 bulk that mashes smooth and holds the croquette shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mash and improving its flavour.
Egg
Binds the coating so the cracker crumbs stick to the croquette.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the outside and adding richness.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy, and the crumb coating may not crisp. Hot fat sets the crust quickly so the inside stays moist.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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