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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried cheese balls made with milk, flour, butter, eggs, and grated Gruyere and American cheeses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese base

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk to form a paste, then stir it into the hot milk.

  3. Add the butter and mix well, then remove from heat.

  4. Beat the egg lightly and add it to the mixture along with salt, black pepper, cayenne, and mustard. Mix thoroughly.

  5. Stir in the grated cheeses until well combined.

  6. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Return the croquettes to the refrigerator for several hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep, hot oil until golden brown and 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. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce that binds the croquette mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a paste-like sauce that gives the croquettes body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the sauce smooth and tender.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooked.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savory, nutty flavor and creaminess.
American cheese
Adds meltiness and extra creaminess to the filling.

The step that matters

Chill the croquettes thoroughly before frying. Chilling firms the cheese sauce so the croquettes hold their shape. If they are still soft, they can burst or leak cheese into the hot oil.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, walnut, butter, pepper, egg, gruyere cheese. 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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