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Croquettes

A fried dish of finely chopped cold meat, ham, and fowl mixed with bread, spices, and cream, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Croquettes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the cold meat, fowl, and ham very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped meat, fowl, and ham with grated stale bread, salt, pepper, nutmeg, catsup, and butter.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes or balls.

Coat and fry the cakes

  1. Dip each cake into beaten egg yolk.

  2. Coat each cake with grated bread.

  3. Fry the coated cakes in boiling lard until brown.

Make the cream binder

  1. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour.

  3. Add 1 cup of cream.

  4. Stir until thick.

  5. Mix in minced fowl and ham.

  6. Heat gently without boiling.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape into croquettes.

  2. Coat each croquette with egg.

  3. Roll each croquette in breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the croquettes in boiling lard until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat and fowl
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving them their savoury bulk and texture.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the chopped meat into a shapeable mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture so it sets firm enough to shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, producing a smooth, tender filling.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating adheres and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling can make cream thin or cause it to curdle. Gentle heat lets the flour thicken the mixture smoothly, so it sets firm enough to shape once cool.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream. 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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