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Parmesan Croquettes

Small fried balls made from Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Parmesan Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, softened butter, salt, and cayenne together.

  2. Add enough beaten egg to bind the mixture into a soft paste that is stiff enough to shape.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of large marbles.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the balls with beaten egg, then coat them with bread crumbs. Repeat for a double coating.

  2. Heat frying fat in a pan until it produces bluish smoke.

  3. Fry the balls in batches of two or three until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Drain on paper and serve piled on a lace paper on a hot dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the mixture hold together as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the paste and form the crisp, golden outer coating.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the paste, giving a softer interior.
Egg
Binds the crumbs and cheese into a shapeable paste and helps the coating adhere.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown in small batches. Frying in small batches keeps the oil hot, so the coating crisps and browns quickly rather than soaking up oil and turning greasy.

“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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