Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Veal Croquette
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the croquettes
Roll a piece of dry bread to make crumbs.
In a bowl, combine chopped veal, salt, egg yolk, and sauce. Mix thoroughly.
Shape the mixture into a ball, then roll into a cylinder or pyramid shape.
Coat the croquette in bread crumbs, then dip in diluted egg to cover completely. Roll in bread crumbs again.
Fry and drain
Heat fat until it can lightly brown a cube of bread in 40 seconds.
Fry the croquette in hot fat until light brown, then drain on paper.
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.
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,056 recipes
Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
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Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,845 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chopped veal
- Forms the main body of the croquette and gives it a meaty texture when cooked.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the veal mixture so it holds its shape while frying.
- Dry bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
- Diluted egg
- Acts as glue so the bread crumbs stick evenly to the croquette.
The step that matters
Frying in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Testing the fat with a bread cube helps confirm it is hot enough.
“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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