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Ham Croquettes

Ham croquettes made with ham, mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, cayenne pepper, and bread crumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Ham Croquettes

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Ham Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the ham, cayenne pepper, butter, and 2 eggs with the mashed potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  3. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each croquette in bread crumbs.

  2. Dip the coated croquettes in the remaining beaten egg.

  3. Coat again in bread crumbs.

  4. Heat oil in a frying basket.

  5. Plunge the croquettes into the boiling fat.

  6. Cook for 2 minutes.

  7. Drain the croquettes.

Serve

  1. Serve.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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. Bread + eggtop 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and keep the filling soft and moist inside.
Eggs
Bind the filling and form a coating that holds the bread crumbs in place.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Cooked ham
Adds savory flavor and meaty texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Plunge the croquettes into the boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil and turn greasy, and the filling can leak out before a crust forms.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, butter, 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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