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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are fried balls of veal mixed with butter, cornstarch, milk, seasonings, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Remove skin, gristle, and bone from the veal and chop it finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan until bubbling.

  3. Add the cornstarch and stir until smooth. Cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Gradually add 1 cup of milk, cooking until smooth.

  5. Add another small cup of milk while keeping the mixture stiff.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Combine the sauce with the veal and add salt, celery salt, parsley, lemon juice, onion juice, and white pepper. Mix well and spread out to cool.

  2. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls.

  3. Roll the balls in bread crumbs. Form into croquettes.

  4. Dip the croquettes in a mixture of beaten egg and water. Roll in crumbs again.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Dry on brown paper.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body and meaty filling of the croquettes.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavour to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a stiff sauce that binds the veal and holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which sets as it thickens and cools.
Egg
Coats the shaped croquettes so the second layer of crumbs adheres and crisps.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce set firm, so the balls keep their form through breading and frying.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, milk, celery, parsley, lemon, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, milk, celery, parsley, lemon, onion. 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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