Name: Baked Croquettes
Ingredients: mashed potatoes, rice, or macaroni; 1 beaten egg; seasonings to taste; meat or fish (optional); buttered crumbs

Why it works: Potato and meat work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 786 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Baked Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Combine mashed potatoes, rice, or macaroni with a beaten egg and seasonings.
If using, mix in cooked meat or fish.
Shape the mixture into croquettes.
Roll each croquette in egg, then in buttered crumbs.
Place the croquettes in a buttered pan, about an inch apart.
Bake for 10 minutes.

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.

Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together786 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

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