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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, eggs, and cream, coated in egg and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sweet 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 ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine hot mashed sweet potatoes, butter, egg yolks, and cream. Mix well and let the mixture cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in egg and then in cracker crumbs.

  3. Place the croquettes in a cold place for 2 hours.

Fry

  1. Fry in deep 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.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sweet potato + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and moisture that make up the soft, creamy filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender texture.
Egg
Forms a sticky coating that helps the cracker crumbs adhere to the croquettes.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Chill the croquettes for 2 hours before frying. Chilling firms the fat and starch in the filling so the croquettes hold their shape and the coating stays intact in hot oil instead of cracking or bursting.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

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