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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, salt, cayenne, coated in flour and breadcrumbs.

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 bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croquettes

  1. Boil, peel, and mash the sweet potatoes.

  2. Add butter, salt, and cayenne; beat until smooth.

  3. Form the mixture into cylinder-shaped croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in flour, then in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sweet potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Sweet potatoes
Provide the starchy, moist body that holds the croquette shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smooth, tender texture.
Flour
Forms a dry first coating that helps the bread crumbs stick and aids browning.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer layer that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Oil that is too hot browns the crumbs before the interior heats through. Steady heat gives a crisp crust and a hot centre.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

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