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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, egg, salt, pepper, 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: 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. Pare the sweet potatoes and cook them in boiling water until tender.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Add butter, coarse sea salt, pepper, and the beaten egg to the mashed potatoes and mix well.

  2. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  3. Dip each croquette in breadcrumbs, then in the beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep hot lard until golden brown, then drain on paper towels.

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. Egg + buttertop 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. Pepper + buttertop 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
Form the soft, starchy base that holds the croquette shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the mashed potato and helps the breadcrumb coating adhere.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potato mixture.

The step that matters

Fry in deep hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and becomes greasy before it browns. Deep, hot fat sets the crust quickly, keeping the inside moist and the outside crisp.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

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