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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sweet 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 ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the boiled sweet potatoes until smooth and light.

  2. Beat in the hot milk, salt, and butter.

  3. Beat one egg until light and mix it into the potato mixture.

  4. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the second egg in a soup plate, cover the croquettes with it, and roll them in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot fat until they turn brown.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sweet potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato
Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them their soft, moist body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and, as a coating, help the bread crumbs adhere.
Butter
Adds richness and softness to the mashed potato.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and smooths the mashed potato into a creamy texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes in hot fat until they turn brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy before the crust sets.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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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