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Beef Croquet

A fried beef patty coated in cracker crumbs, made with onions, parsley, cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef Croquet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a skillet, fry the onions in a little butter until browned.

  2. Add the chopped beef, soaked bread, parsley, cream, thyme, lemon peel, pepper, and salt. Stir until heated.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten eggs.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool, then form it into round or oval balls. Carefully handle the balls to prevent breaking.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in cracker dust.

  2. Fry in hot lard or drippings 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the croquette and gives it its savory meaty flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape when cooked.
Stale bread
Soaks up moisture and helps keep the filling tender and binding it together.
Onions
Browned in butter first, adding sweetness and depth of flavor to the filling.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft rather than dry.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, golden browned coating when fried.

The step that matters

Carefully handle the balls to prevent breaking. The cooled filling is soft and held together mainly by the egg and bread, so rough handling can crack the shell. Keeping the shape intact before coating helps the croquettes hold together in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, parsley, cream, thyme, lemon, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, cream, thyme, lemon, pepper. 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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