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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are fried meatballs made from minced veal, ham, onion, spices, milk, eggs, 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

Prepare the filling

  1. In a chopping bowl, mince the cold veal, cold ham, and onion. Add mace, powdered parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

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

  3. Beat the eggs and mix with corn-starch or flour, then add to the mixture.

  4. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully.

  5. Remove from heat and spread on a platter to cool.

Shape and fry

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

  2. Dip the croquettes 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the filling, providing the savoury meat flavour.
Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds its shape, and form the coating that helps browning.
Milk or cream
Makes the filling moist and tender, and helps it set into a soft mass when cooled.
Corn-starch or flour
Thickens the mixture so it can be shaped into balls without falling apart.
Cold butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling soft and flavourful.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm up fully before rolling; if it is still warm and soft it will not hold its shape and may break apart during frying.

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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