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Potato Croquets

A fried potato ball coated in breadcrumbs, made with butter, cream, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Potato Croquets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potato mixture

  1. Mash the cold potatoes in a pan.

  2. Add melted butter, salt, pepper, cream, and the beaten yolk of one egg.

  3. Rub the mixture together for about five minutes until smooth.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into balls the size of walnuts or small rolls.

  2. Dip each ball into a beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in boiling 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.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Their starch makes the mixture soft and absorbent, forming the body of the croquette.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed potato mixture.
Egg
Binds the filling and, as a coating, helps bread crumbs stick and set.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture until smooth. Working the mashed potato with fat and liquid until smooth gives an even, cohesive texture; lumps or uneven mixing can make shaped balls crumble or fry unevenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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