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Meat Croquettes

Meat croquettes are fried balls of ground meat, bell pepper, and spices coated in egg and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, cream together butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Warm the milk and pour it into the creamed mixture.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

Shape and coat

  1. Add the ground cold meat and chopped bell pepper, mixing well.

  2. Drop spoonfuls onto a platter to harden.

  3. When ready to cook, dip each croquette in beaten egg and roll in cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry quickly in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain on brown paper and serve garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 butter and milk into a sauce that holds the meat together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, helping it flavour and bind the filling.
Cold cooked meat
Provides the main filling, bound into the thick sauce so it holds its shape.
Egg
Beaten egg coats the shaped croquettes and helps the cracker crumbs stick.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried in deep fat.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thick before adding the meat. The starch in the flour must thicken fully in the milk, or the mixture stays loose and the croquettes will not hold their shape when chilled and fried.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, flour, butter, meat, 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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