Skip to main content
Main

Potato Croquettes

A fried potato croquette made with mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix mashed potatoes, beaten eggs, melted butter, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  2. Heat the mixture in a pan, stirring until it is smoking hot.

Shape and coat

  1. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into small rolls flattened at the ends.

  2. Roll each croquette in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels and 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, starchy interior.
Beaten eggs
Bind the potatoes together so the shaped rolls hold their form.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture, softening the texture.
Flour
Creates a dry coating that helps the outside brown and crisp when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A hot, soft mixture is sticky and hard to shape, and it can fall apart. Cooling firms the starch and egg so the rolls hold their shape in the oil.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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

More potato croquettes recipes

Sweet 58 See all 311 →

You might also like

Potato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesPotato BiscuitPotato Biscuit32 recipesPotato SnowPotato Snow23 recipes