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Potato Croquettes

A fried ball of mashed potatoes mixed with butter, milk, spices, and beaten egg, coated in cracker crumbs.

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 milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pare and boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.

  2. Mix in butter, milk, salt, nutmeg, Cayenne pepper, and the beaten egg yolk.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly and mold it into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball in the beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the croquette and give a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potato mixture can be shaped smoothly.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the crumbs adhere to the outside.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the croquettes absorb excess oil and turn greasy, while the coating may not crisp before the interior heats through. Frying at a steady hot temperature browns the crumbs quickly and keeps the inside moist.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, nutmeg, pepper, 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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