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Soy Bean Croquettes

Fried croquettes made from mashed soybeans, milk, onion, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Soy Bean Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt butter in a double boiler.

  2. Add flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. Heat and add milk and onion, cooking until thickened.

  4. Stir in salt.

Shape and fry

  1. Rub beans through a sieve and mix with the white sauce and bread crumbs.

  2. Dip in egg whites, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Soybean + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked soybeans
Provide the main body of the croquette, bound together by the sauce.
Milk
Forms the white sauce with butter and flour, giving the mixture a creamy, thick texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce that holds the croquette together.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk to the mixture and form a crisp, browned outer coating when fried.
Egg whites (in the method)
Act as a binder so the bread crumb coating adheres before frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. Oil that is not hot enough lets the coating soak up fat and turn greasy, while the bread crumbs brown through Maillard reactions only at sufficient heat. Frying at a steady high temperature gives a crisp crust without overcooking the soft centre.

Swap the soybean

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, onion, bread, butter, flour, parsley):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Soybeanthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, bread, butter, flour, 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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