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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small meatballs coated in crackers and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine the finely chopped veal and 1 egg in a bowl.

  2. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour to form a roux.

  4. Gradually add milk to the roux until a thick gravy consistency is achieved.

  5. Cook the gravy well.

  6. Mix the veal into the gravy.

  7. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  8. Allow the mixture to heat through.

  9. Let the mixture cool until almost cold.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into desired forms.

  2. Coat the shapes with crushed crackers and an additional egg.

  3. Let the croquettes stand for half a day.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Veal
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes their meaty body.
Egg
Binds the chopped veal so the filling holds its shape when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a roux-based gravy that holds the veal together.
Butter
Enriches the roux, adding flavor and helping it cook smoothly.
Milk
Hydrates the roux into a thick gravy that moistens the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the gravy well. Flour must be fully cooked in the roux and gravy, or it tastes raw and pasty. A thick, well-cooked base also firms up as it cools, so the shaped croquettes hold together in the hot fat.

“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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