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Filled Croquettes

A pancake roll filled with seasoned meat, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Filled Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pancakes

  1. Make two pancakes on a griddle.

  2. Spread the mixture of chopped meat, breadcrumbs, butter, beaten egg, salt, pepper, and nutmeg thinly over the pancakes.

  3. Roll the pancakes like a jelly roll.

  4. Once cold, cut into inch pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the pieces in breadcrumbs and beaten egg.

  2. Fry the croquettes 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Bind the meat filling and form a coating that helps crumbs stick.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture in the filling and form a crisp outer coating when fried.
Finely chopped meat
Provides the savory filling, whose protein sets as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling and cutting after cooling. The pancakes must be fully cold before cutting, because a warm roll is soft and crumbles or squashes the filling out. Cold, set pieces hold their shape through dipping and frying.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, egg, pepper. 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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