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Bean Croquettes

Bean croquettes made from mashed boiled beans, bread crumbs, onion, pepper, salt, milk, flour, and fried in oil.

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

Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mash the cold, boiled beans.

  2. Add enough bread crumbs to make a stiff mixture.

  3. Mix in a little chopped onion, pepper, and salt.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette into milk and then into flour.

  3. Fry in hot oil or Crisco 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.

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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 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

Beans
Form the main body of the croquettes, providing bulk and a soft, starchy interior.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the mashed beans so the mixture holds its shape when formed.
Milk
Helps the flour coating adhere to each croquette before frying.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that helps the outside brown and crisp in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, croquettes absorb oil and turn greasy and may fall apart, while very high heat can brown the outside before the inside heats through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, bread, pepper, milk, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, bread, pepper, milk, flour. 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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