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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sweet Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the salt and pepper into the mashed sweet potatoes.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. If the mixture is too dry, add hot milk to moisten.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

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

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep oil until golden brown, then drain on paper towels.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes (in the method)
Provide the bulk and body that holds the croquette shape together.
Butter
Adds richness and softness to the mashed sweet potato mixture.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape.
Hot milk
Moistens a dry mixture, keeping it soft and easy to shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Adding hot milk only if the mixture is too dry. Too much liquid makes the croquettes soft and hard to shape, while a dry mixture cracks and falls apart. Adding milk gradually, only as needed, keeps the mixture pliable enough to hold its shape through coating and frying.

“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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