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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made with cooked macaroni, ham or tongue, cheese, milk, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine macaroni, chopped ham or tongue, grated cheese, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Heat milk in a saucepan and whisk in flour and butter until thickened.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the meat and cheese mixture.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate and let cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Mix the beaten egg with cold water and reserved cheese in a shallow dish.

  3. Dip each croquette in the egg mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  2. Serve with tomato 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquette, giving it body and a soft, starchy filling.
Ham or tongue
Adds savoury meat flavour and firmness to the filling.
Cheese
Melts into the filling for richness and binds it, and adds flavour to the coating.
Milk
With flour and butter, forms a thickened white sauce that holds the filling together.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the filling sets firm enough to shape.
Egg
Coats the croquettes so the outer layer holds together and browns when fried.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool fully before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can burst or fall apart in the hot oil. Cooling lets the starch in the thickened sauce set, so the croquettes stay firm and intact while frying.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, cheese, pepper, milk, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cheese, pepper, milk, flour, butter, egg. 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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