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Potato Croquettes

A fried snack made from mashed potatoes, butter, cream, egg whites, and seasonings, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Pare the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes.

  3. Mash the potatoes.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Add butter, hot cream or milk, beaten egg whites, salt, and pepper to the mashed potatoes.

  2. When cool enough to handle, shape the mixture into croquettes.

  3. Roll the croquettes in eggs.

  4. Roll the croquettes in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot lard 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that forms the body of the croquettes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a softer, smoother texture.
Hot cream or milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potato becomes soft and easy to shape.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and set when heated, helping the croquettes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. Hot mashed potato is soft and sticky, so it is hard to shape and may tear or slump. Cooling firms the starch so the croquettes hold their form through coating and frying.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, 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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