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Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of mashed potato mixed with butter, egg yolk, milk, salt, and pepper, coated in flour, egg white, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix mashed potato, butter, egg yolk, milk, salt, and pepper in a saucepan over low heat until the mixture is warm and the egg is cooked.

  2. Form the mixture into balls, dusting your hands with flour.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the balls with beaten egg white and roll them in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot fat 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. 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 potato
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives a soft, moist interior.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato mixture and adds richness to the interior.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a smoother, richer texture.
Egg white
Helps the bread crumbs adhere to the surface of the balls.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browning outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Warm the mixture gently over low heat. Heating over low heat warms the mixture and cooks the egg yolk gently, so it binds the potato without scrambling or turning grainy. High heat could curdle the egg and leave the mixture lumpy or stiff, making the balls hard to shape.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, pepper, flour, 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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