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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried balls made from a cheese and roux mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the mixture boils and is smooth.

  4. Stir in the cheese until melted and smooth.

  5. Beat in the egg yolks.

Shape and fry

  1. Let the mixture cool and stiffen.

  2. Mold into croquettes.

  3. Fry in very hot deep fat, a few at a time.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness to the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stiff sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Cheese
Adds flavor and melts into the sauce for a creamy interior.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture as it sets.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and stiffen before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape and may spread or burst in the hot fat. Chilling it until firm lets the thickened sauce set so the croquettes keep their form while frying.

“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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