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Nut and Potato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from mashed potatoes and walnuts, coated in breadcrumbs and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Nut and Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Add the beaten yolk of the egg to the hot mashed potatoes.

  2. Stir in the chopped walnut meats.

  3. Mix in enough bread crumbs and cream to achieve a moldable consistency.

  4. Form the mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in bread crumbs, then beaten egg, and again in bread crumbs.

  2. Brown the croquettes in deep hot fat.

  3. Drain and serve.

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.

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. Walnut + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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

Egg
Its yolk binds the potato mixture and the beaten egg helps the outer crumbs stick.
Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft starchy body that holds the croquette together.
Walnut meats
Add nutty flavour and a little texture against the smooth potato.
Bread crumbs
Add enough dry body to make the mixture moldable and form a crisp, browned coating.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture stays soft and moldable.

The step that matters

Brown the croquettes in deep hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to crisp and brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil and turn greasy before the coating sets.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Peanutfits about as well
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, meat, potato, bread, 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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