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Potato Croquettes

A fried snack of mashed potato mixed with eggs, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, coated in breadcrumbs.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, beat the hot mashed potatoes with the egg yolks, nutmeg, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

Coat

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the whole egg.

  2. Roll each ball in the beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat the Allinson nut-oil or butter in a pan and fry the croquettes 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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hot mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft body of the croquette filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the potato mixture together.
Whole egg
Forms a coating that helps breadcrumbs stick to the balls.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

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

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, nutmeg, pepper, butter. 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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