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Potato Croquettes

A fried potato patty made with mashed potatoes, butter, cream, egg whites, salt, pepper, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes until fine.

  2. Mix in the butter, cream, egg whites, salt, and pepper.

  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then shape it into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with crumbs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette, giving a soft, starchy interior that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture in the mash.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mashed potato soft and easy to shape.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold together while frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool slightly before shaping. A mixture that is too warm stays soft and sticky, making croquettes hard to shape and likely to break apart. Slight cooling firms the starch so each piece holds its form through coating and frying.

Swap the potato

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

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

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