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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried cheese balls coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat the cream sauce in a saucepan until very hot.

  2. Add the diced cheese and egg yolks mixed with a little cream.

  3. Stir on the heat for 1 minute until the cheese is sticky.

  4. Season with salt, white pepper, red pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Shape and chill

  1. Chill in the refrigerator until cold.

  2. Shape the chilled mixture into croquettes.

  3. Roll the croquettes in breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in very hot fat.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into the sauce to give the filling its rich, creamy body and flavour.
Cream sauce
Forms the moist base that carries the cheese and keeps the filling soft.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until cold before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can break open or leak during frying. Chilling firms the fat and starches so the croquettes keep their form.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, cream, sauce, egg, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, sauce, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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