Name: Croquettes of Meat, Etc
Ingredients: 2 cups minced cold meat, game, fish, or poultry; ½ cup gravy; 2 egg yolks; 2 eggs, beaten; 1 cup bread crumbs; Oil for frying; Coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes of Meat, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the minced meat with gravy and egg yolks until thickened to a paste.
Form the mixture into balls or rolls.

Coat and fry

Dip each piece into the beaten eggs.
Coat with bread crumbs.
Heat oil in a pan.
Fry the croquettes 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.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Minced meat: Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Gravy: Adds moisture and helps bind the minced meat into a workable paste.
Egg yolks: Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, cohesive paste.
Beaten eggs: Act as a sticky layer that helps bread crumbs adhere to the shaped croquettes.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes until golden brown. Oil must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if the oil is too cool, the croquettes absorb excess oil and turn greasy before the crust sets and the filling heats through.

“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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Croquettes of Meat, Etc