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Forcemeat Croquettes of Beef and Potatoes

A fried croquette made from minced beef and mashed potatoes mixed with herbs and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Forcemeat Croquettes of Beef and Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the thin slices of beef.

  2. Combine minced beef with cold mashed potatoes, savoury herbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add 2 beaten eggs and mix into a paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Take small amounts of the paste, roll into balls, and flatten them.

  2. Heat oil in a frying basket and fry the croquettes until rich brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the croquettes over a pile of mashed potatoes.

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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Cold mashed potatoes
Add body and moisture, making the filling soft inside and easy to shape.
Thin slices of beef
Provide the savoury meat base that gives the croquettes their main flavour.
Flour for rolling
Dry the outside of the shaped croquettes so they brown well in hot oil.

The step that matters

Fry until rich brown. Frying in hot oil browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and a crisp crust. Too little heat leaves the croquettes greasy and pale, while the inside still needs to heat fully.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, egg, flour. 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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