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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from mashed sweet potatoes mixed with butter, cream, onion, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Sweet 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 ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil, peel, and mash the sweet potatoes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then mix in butter, cream, onion, and parsley.

  3. Once cool, shape the mixture into small cylinders or round balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Sweet potato + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Sweet potatoes
Form the soft, starchy base that holds the croquette together and gives it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, making the filling softer and more tender.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the mashed filling.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs stick to the shaped piece.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before shaping. A warm, soft mash is too loose to hold its shape and can break or stick during coating. Cooling firms the starch so the pieces keep their form in the hot lard.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, cream, onion, parsley, 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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