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Potato Croquettes

A fried snack of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, salt, pepper, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Ensure the potatoes are well cooked and dry.

  2. Pass the potatoes through a fine sieve or mash them.

  3. Mix in the butter, salt, and pepper.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into small croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten eggs.

  3. Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat frying fat in a pan.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the croquettes and give a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potato, softening its texture.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the bread crumbs adhere to each croquette.
White bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Ensure the potatoes are well cooked and dry. Starchy potatoes that are fully cooked mash smoothly, and excess moisture makes the mixture soft and hard to shape, and can cause the coating to separate or the croquettes to break apart in hot fat.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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