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Meat and Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of meat and mashed potato 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: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat and Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan and sauté the minced onion until it simmers.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and frothy.

  3. Pour in the milk and season with salt and pepper; bring to a boil while stirring continuously.

  4. Mix in the chopped meat and mashed potato thoroughly, then spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls or rolls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in cracker or bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the coated balls in hot lard for about two minutes until golden brown.

  2. Remove the croquettes with a skimmer and drain on brown paper.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the flavour and helps form the base of the white sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth binding sauce that holds the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess to the filling.
Mashed potato
Adds body and moisture, helping the filling bind and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs adhere and set during frying.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. If the filling is still warm, it stays soft and sticky and will not hold its shape. Spreading it to cool lets the starch and sauce firm up, so the balls keep their form and do not break apart in the hot lard.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, meat, potato, egg. 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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