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Potato Croquettes

A fried dish of mashed potato balls coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine mashed potatoes, butter, white pepper, salt, celery salt, onion juice, and egg in a bowl and mix until light.

  2. Rub the mixture through a strainer and return to the heat.

  3. Stir until the potatoes pull away from the dish.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls, then form the balls into cylinders.

  2. Roll the cylinders in bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Dip in beaten egg.

  4. Coat with crumbs again.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that give the croquettes their soft, tender body.
Egg
Binds the mixture and, when coated, helps the crumbs adhere and set during frying.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mixture for smoother shaping.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Stir until the potatoes pull away from the dish. Cooking the mixture drives off surface moisture so it firms up enough to shape. Stopping too early leaves it sticky and likely to fall apart during coating and frying.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, celery, onion, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, celery, onion, 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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