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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried cheese balls coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the Parmesan cheese, American cheese, and beaten egg in a bowl.

  2. Season with paprika and salt.

  3. Mix in the heavy white sauce.

Shape and coat

  1. Once the mixture is cold, shape it into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in bread crumbs.

  3. Dip each croquette in egg.

  4. Coat each croquette again with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes 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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavour and firms the mixture as it sets.
American cheese
Melts smoothly into the sauce, adding creaminess and body to the filling.
Egg
Binds the filling and, with the crumb coating, helps the croquettes hold their shape.
Heavy white sauce
Provides the moist, thick base that holds the cheese together and gives a creamy interior.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until cold before shaping. A cold, firm mixture holds its shape when handled. If it is warm and soft, the croquettes can slump or burst, and the coating may slide off during frying.

“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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