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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made from macaroni, cheese, milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into pieces about 2 inches long.

  2. Boil the macaroni in a kettle of boiling water for 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni in a colander, then rinse in cold water for 15 minutes.

  4. Cut the macaroni into pieces ½ inch long.

Make the filling

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Rub Cottolene and flour together until smooth, then stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Stir continually until the mixture thickens.

  4. Add the cheese, macaroni, salt, pepper, and egg yolks; cook for 1 minute longer.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, form into cone-shaped croquettes.

  2. Roll the croquettes in egg, then in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling Cottolene until golden brown.

  4. Serve with cream sauce.

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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a firm, chewy body when cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the macaroni together.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the filling in shape when cooled.
Egg yolks
Enriches the filling and helps it set firm and bind when cooked.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm filling is soft and sticky, so the croquettes lose their shape. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the shapes hold during breading and frying.

“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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