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Potato Croquettes

A fried potato patty coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Shape

  1. Mash the potatoes with the butter, pepper, salt, and a little of the beaten egg.

  2. Flour your hands and form the mixture into desired shapes, like fruits.

Coat

  1. Brush the shapes with beaten egg and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Remould the croquettes after coating them with crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, similar to potato chips.

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
Provide the bulk and starch that hold the croquettes together in shape.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and keeps the mash soft and moist.
Egg
Binds the mashed potato and helps the bread crumbs stick to the shapes.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browning outer coating during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. Oil that is hot enough sets and browns the crumb coating quickly, so the crust crisps before the inside absorbs excess oil and turns greasy.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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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