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Croquettes. Potato Croquettes.

A fried ball of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, milk, pepper, cayenne, eggs, and bread crumbs.

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 ↓

Croquettes. Potato Croquettes.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the milk to the butter and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pass the mashed potatoes through a sieve.

  4. Add the sieved potatoes to the boiling butter and milk and beat the mixture until the potatoes are very hot.

  5. Remove the mixture from the heat.

  6. Stir in the pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  7. Add the egg yolks and mix until the heat dries the eggs.

  8. Roll the mixture into small balls, using flour to prevent sticking.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Roll each ball in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Coat the balls in bread crumbs by rolling them on a sheet of kitchen paper.

  4. Fry the croquettes in hot clarified fat or lard for 2 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provides the bulk and starch that set into a soft, cohesive interior.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the interior tender.
Milk
Adds moisture that makes the potato mixture smooth and pliable for shaping.
Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture as they cook, while whites form an outer coating that holds crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks and mix until the heat dries the eggs. The residual heat of the hot potato mixture must partly cook and dry the yolks so they bind the mixture without scrambling or making it wet and sticky, which would make the balls hard to shape and coat.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, pepper, 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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