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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small, fried meat cakes made from ground veal mixed with a white sauce and coated in crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Melt ¼ cup of butter in a kettle.

  2. Add the veal and brown it on all sides.

  3. Add water and boil until the veal is well done.

  4. Let the veal cool, then grind it finely.

Make the sauce and mixture

  1. In a saucepan, melt the remaining ¼ cup of butter, add flour, and enough milk to make a thick sauce.

  2. Combine the ground veal with the white sauce.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small croquettes.

  2. Coat each croquette in rolled crackers.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep lard 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes, providing the meaty filling once cooked and ground.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the veal and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a sauce that binds the ground veal together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Rolled crackers
Forms the crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Grinding and binding the veal with the sauce. The veal must be cool and finely ground so the sauce binds it evenly. If the mixture is too warm or too coarse, it will be loose and may fall apart when shaped and fried.

“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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