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Lamb Croquettes

A dish of ground lamb formed into croquettes, breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Melt butter in a stew pan.

  2. Stir in flour.

  3. Cook until it doesn't stick to the spoon.

  4. Slowly add stock while stirring continually.

  5. Chop onions and green pepper finely.

  6. Cook the chopped onions and green pepper with the roux.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the lamb and strip meat from bones; you should have 4 lbs of meat when cold.

  2. Grind the meat finely and add to the roux with chopped parsley and seasoning.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes and turn out into shallow pans to cool.

  4. Mould into croquettes weighing 2 oz each.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the croquettes in a batter made of milk, eggs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Roll the dipped croquettes in fresh bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep fat at 345°F (175°C) until 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 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

Flour
Forms the roux with butter, thickening the stock into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Fat for the roux, carrying flour and helping create a smooth, rich base.
Stock
Liquid that turns the roux into a thick sauce, adding savory flavor to the filling.
Chuck lamb
Main meat of the filling, providing the savory flavor and bulk of the croquettes.
Eggs
Bind the milk batter so the coating adheres to the croquettes and sets when fried.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the filling as they cook softly in the roux.

The step that matters

Cook the roux until it no longer sticks to the spoon. Cooking the flour and butter until the mixture pulls away from the spoon drives off raw flour taste and gives enough body to bind the filling. Undercooked roux stays pasty and makes the croquettes soft and hard to shape.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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