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Parmentier Croquettes

A fried potato croquette made with mashed potatoes, butter, cream, parsley, spices, egg yolks, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Parmentier Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, heat the mashed potatoes with the butter.

  2. Once hot, add enough cream to achieve a thick batter consistency.

  3. Stir in the chopped parsley, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Mix in the egg yolks and allow the mixture to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into small balls.

  2. Coat the balls in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquettes and give them a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the mixture taste smooth and savoury.
Cream
Adds moisture so the mixture reaches a thick, workable batter consistency.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it hold its shape when cooled and shaped.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape and can stick to your hands. Cooling firms the starch and sets the egg yolks, so the balls keep their form in the hot oil.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, 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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