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Meat Croquettes

A fried patty of cooked meat mixed with milk, flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, mix the milk and flour.

  2. Melt butter the size of an egg in the pan and stir in the milk mixture.

  3. Bring to a boil, then mix thoroughly with the chopped meat.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into balls or cakes and let them stand until ready to fry.

  2. Dip each ball or cake in the beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot lard 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms a smooth white sauce that binds the meat into a creamy mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs stick and form a crisp shell.
Breadcrumbs
Form a golden, crunchy outer crust when fried.
Cooked meat
Provides the main filling and flavor of the croquettes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand before frying. Chilling and resting the thickened mixture firms it so the shaped croquettes hold their form and do not burst or fall apart in hot fat.

“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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