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Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of mashed potatoes mixed with egg yolk, butter, parsley, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mash the cooked potatoes or rub them through a wire sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the potatoes, egg yolk, parsley, and seasoning; stir until well mixed and the mixture binds.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into balls or egg-shaped croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown, then drain well.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  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

Boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, starchy body once mashed.
Egg yolk
Binds the mashed potato so the mixture holds its shape when formed.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the potato mixture.
Egg
Creates a coating that helps bread crumbs stick and encourages even browning.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fat until golden brown. The coating must be sealed quickly in hot fat; if the fat is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil and become greasy and may break apart before the crumbs set and brown.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, pepper, 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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