Skip to main content
Main

Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes are small fried cakes made from finely chopped meat, cracker crumbs, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Beef Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold meat very finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, cracker crumbs, egg, pepper, salt, and sage.

  3. Add hot water or meat gravy until the mixture holds together.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in a hot buttered pan 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 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

Cold meat
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its meaty flavor.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture bind and hold its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and a rich, golden crust.

The step that matters

Add hot water or gravy gradually. Too much liquid makes the mixture soft and the cakes fall apart, while too little leaves it crumbly. Adding it a little at a time lets the crumbs absorb moisture so the mixture binds without becoming wet.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Sagethe original

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

More beef croquettes recipes

Corned 5Corn 3 See all 66 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes