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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small, breadcrumb-coated balls of minced veal, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced veal with pepper, salt, and mace.

  2. Shape the mixture into pear-shaped balls.

  3. Roll each ball in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  2. Serve garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving them their meaty flavour and soft interior.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere to each croquette before frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried in oil.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Frying at a steady heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the veal cooks through. Oil that is too cool lets the coating soak up grease and fall apart, and oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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