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Celery Croquettes

A fried croquette made with cooked celery, butter, flour, cream, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Celery Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cook the chopped celery in boiling salted water until soft.

  2. Drain and reserve the cooking water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually add the reserved water and cream, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the salt and cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the slightly beaten egg.

  5. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix the celery into the sauce, then shape into croquettes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry until golden brown and serve with roast or game.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the main flavour and the body of the croquette filling.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour so it cooks smoothly into the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, making the sauce smooth and creamy.
Egg
Sets with heat to help bind the filling so the croquettes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg off the heat. Adding a beaten egg to a very hot sauce can scramble it. Removing the pan from heat first lets the egg blend in smoothly and bind the mixture without curdling.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, 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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