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Croquettes of French Peas

French peas formed into croquettes and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes of French Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter and flour together in a saucepan.

  2. Add the cream, salt, pepper, onion juice, and celery. Stir well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten egg yolk and the peas that have been pureed.

Shape and fry

  1. Pour the mixture onto a platter and let it cool.

  2. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

  3. 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.

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the roux base and adds richness to the croquette mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a stiff mixture that holds its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the mixture set into a smooth body.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooled.
Peas
Provide the main flavor and body of the croquettes once pureed.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The mixture must cool fully so it firms up enough to hold its shape. If shaped while warm, it will be soft and may collapse or slump when fried.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper, onion, celery):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper, onion, celery. 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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