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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are small fried balls made with grated cheese, bread crumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated cheese, bread crumbs, salt, and white pepper.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and mix until well combined.

  3. Form the mixture into small croquettes.

Fry and serve

  1. Dredge each croquette in additional bread crumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  3. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately with parsley and sliced lemon.

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Grated cheese
Provides flavour and melts slightly to bind the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body, and form a crisp coating when fried.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture together and help it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Frying the croquettes until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to crisp the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb oil, turn greasy, and may fall apart before the coating sets.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, bread, egg, parsley, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, egg, parsley, lemon. 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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