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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small oval-shaped meat cakes coated in cracker crumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the veal until cooked, then let it cool.

  2. Chop the veal very finely and mix with stale bread, pepper, salt, grated onion, and parsley.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the veal cooking liquid and add the beaten egg.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into oval croquettes about 3 inches long.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg and then coat with cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper and keep hot for a few minutes before serving.

  3. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their meaty texture.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the minced veal into a shapeable mixture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and, as a dip, helps the cracker crumbs adhere.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and promotes browning and a crisp exterior.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it crisps, and the croquettes can fall apart. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly and drives browning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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