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Parsnip Croquettes

Parsnip croquettes are small, flat balls of mashed parsnip coated in flour and sautéed in butter.

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

Why it works: Parsnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Parsnip Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Wash the parsnips and cook them in boiling salted water for 45 minutes.

  2. Drain and plunge them into cold water to easily remove the skins.

Shape and cook

  1. Mash the parsnips and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Shape the mixture into small flat round balls.

  3. Roll the balls in flour and sauté them in butter until golden.

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. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Parsnips
Provide the main starchy body and sweet flavour of the croquettes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mash and helps the outside brown when sautéed.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the croquettes brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Sautéing the floured croquettes in butter. Flour browns quickly in hot fat, so the butter should be hot enough to golden the coating without burning it before the centre warms through.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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