Skip to main content
Main

Potato Croquettes

A fried potato ball coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and mash the potatoes.

  2. Season with salt, butter, and white pepper.

  3. While hot, beat in the egg yolks.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into balls the size of a small apple.

  2. Roll each ball in flour, then in beaten eggs, and finally in bread crumbs.

  3. Make an impression in each ball with your thumb to resemble an apple.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the croquettes in hot oil.

  2. Serve on a fancy folded napkin with a sprig of parsley in the impression.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquettes and give a soft, absorbent interior.
Egg yolks
Bind the mashed potato mixture and add richness to its texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, keeping the potato interior soft and rich.
All-purpose flour
Creates a dry first coating that helps the beaten egg adhere.
Eggs
Form a binding coating that helps bread crumbs stick to the outside.
Bread crumbs
Provide a crisp outer layer that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Brown the croquettes in hot oil. The coating must be fully set and the oil hot enough to crisp the crumbs quickly. Oil that is too cool lets the croquettes absorb grease and turn soggy, while the potato interior needs the coating to hold it together.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, flour, bread, parsley. 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.

More potato croquettes recipes

Sweet 58 See all 311 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes