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Turnip Croquettes

Turnip croquettes are fried balls of mashed turnip and potato coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Turnip Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turnips

  1. Wash the yellow turnips and cut them into half‑inch slices.

  2. Pare and cook the slices in boiling salted water until tender but not very soft.

  3. Drain well and press the turnips through a fine‑meshed sieve.

Shape the croquettes

  1. In a bowl, mix the turnip pulp with 1 cup of mashed potato, 1½ tablespoons of butter, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ⅛ teaspoon of pepper.

  2. Turn the mixture out onto a plate to cool, then form it into cork shapes.

  3. Roll the shapes in bread crumbs, coat with beaten egg, and cover again with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in deep fat until golden brown, then drain 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.

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. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow turnips
Form the main body of the croquette, giving the filling its bulk and flavour.
Mashed potato
Adds starch and body, helping the pulp hold together when shaped.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture of the filling.
Egg
Beaten egg binds the bread crumb coating so it sticks and crisps.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Press the turnips through a fine sieve after draining. Draining well removes excess water, and pressing the turnips to a smooth pulp prevents a wet, lumpy filling that would loosen during frying and make the shapes hard to hold together.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, bread, 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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