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Sweet Potato Croquettes

A fried snack of mashed sweet potatoes mixed with butter, salt, pepper, egg, 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

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes until tender, then skin them.

  2. Press the potatoes through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  3. Add melted butter, salt, and pepper to the potatoes and mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into cork-shaped croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette into the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels and 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.

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. Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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 potatoes
Form the soft, moist body of the croquettes once mashed and sieved.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the mixture smooth and tender.
Egg
Binds the coating to the croquette and helps the crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the croquettes in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, croquettes absorb excess oil and turn greasy, while overly hot oil browns the crumbs before the centre heats through. Steady heat gives a crisp crust and a hot interior.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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