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Croquettes. Potato Croquettes.

A fried dish of mashed potato balls coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

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

Croquettes. Potato Croquettes.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Pass the mashed potatoes through a sieve.

  4. Add the potatoes to the boiling milk and butter.

  5. Beat well until the potatoes are very hot, then remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  7. Add the egg yolks and stir until the heat dries the egg.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls, using a little flour to prevent sticking.

  2. Beat the egg whites.

  3. Roll each ball in the egg whites.

  4. Place bread crumbs on a sheet of kitchen paper and roll the balls in the crumbs until covered.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot clarified fat or lard for 2 minutes.

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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving the flavour and softness of the potato mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the potato mixture stays smooth and easy to shape.
Eggs
Bind the potato mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Heat the potatoes until the egg yolks are stirred in and set. Stirring the yolks into very hot potato lets the residual heat cook and dry the egg, which binds the mixture. If the mixture is too cool, the croquettes may be loose and fall apart when fried.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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