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Meat and Potato Croquettes

A fried ball or roll made from buttered onion, flour, milk, meat, mashed potato, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat and Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan and sauté the minced onion until it simmers.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and frothy.

  3. Gradually add the milk, seasoning with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil while stirring.

  4. Mix in the chopped meat and mashed potato thoroughly, then spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls or rolls.

  2. Dip each ball in the beaten egg, then roll in cracker or bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the coated balls in hot lard for about two minutes until golden brown.

  2. Remove the croquettes with a skimmer and drain on brown paper.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Adds bulk and a soft, moist body to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that binds the filling.
Meat
Provides the savory flavor and substance of the filling.
Egg
Acts as a binder and helps the crumb coating adhere.
Milk
Makes the flour mixture a creamy sauce that keeps the filling moist.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape, and it can crack or burst in the hot lard. Chilling firms the starches and binder so the coated balls stay intact while frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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