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Veal Croquettes

A fried dish of veal mixture shaped into cone‑shaped croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Make the veal mixture

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk or cream to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, rub the butter and flour together to form a smooth paste.

  3. Stir the paste into the boiling milk and cook, stirring continually, until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the chopped veal, onion juice, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a large plate and let it cool until firm.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Once cooled, shape the mixture into cone-shaped croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in boiling oil or fat until golden brown.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 croquette and gives it its savoury meaty flavour.
Flour
Combined with butter and milk, it thickens the sauce so the mixture holds its shape.
Butter
Enriches the thickened paste, adding fat for flavour and a smoother texture.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base that the flour paste thickens into a binding sauce.
Egg
Coats the croquette so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until firm before shaping. The starch in the flour thickens the sauce as it cools, so the mixture must set firm before shaping; if it is still warm and soft, the croquettes will slump and may burst or fall apart in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper, egg. 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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