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Potato Croquettes

Small fried balls of mashed potatoes mixed with egg, pepper, salt, parsley, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine cold mashed potatoes with the egg, pepper, salt, and minced parsley to form a paste.

  2. Shape the mixture into small balls, about the size of a walnut.

  3. Roll each ball in bread crumbs, then dip in beaten egg, and roll in bread crumbs again.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan and fry the croquettes 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the soft, moist body of the croquettes.
Egg
Binds the potato mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat and browns the outside while frying.

The step that matters

Frying the coated croquettes. The breaded coating must be fully set and the lard hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If the fat is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil, turn greasy, and the interior may stay soft or loose.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, parsley, 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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