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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are fried balls of minced veal, ham, onion, and spices coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Make the mixture

  1. In a chopping bowl, combine minced veal, cold ham, onion, mace, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Heat milk or cream until boiling, then stir in cold butter and the veal mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix beaten eggs with corn-starch or flour, then add to the veal mixture.

  4. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully, then remove from heat.

  5. Spread the mixture on a platter and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, roll into balls and flatten each one.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard using a wire basket 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the croquettes hold their shape.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness to the veal mixture.
Minced veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes.
Corn-starch or flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds together when cooled and shaped.
Cold butter
Adds fat and richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture gently while stirring. Cooking the mixture with constant but careful stirring thickens it evenly and keeps the eggs and starch from clumping or scorching. A properly thickened mixture that has cooled firm is easier to shape and less likely to fall apart when fried.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk. 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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