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Meat Croquettes

Meat croquettes are fried meat balls coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop the meat finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stock; stir until it boils.

  3. Add the chopped meat, seasoning, and ketchup; mix well and transfer to a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into rolls.

  2. Dip each roll in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper and serve with seasoned gravy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Scraps of meat
Forms the main filling and provides the savory flavor of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the flour mixture taste smooth and savory.
Beaten egg (in the method)
Acts as a sticky coating that helps the breadcrumbs adhere before frying.

The step that matters

Cool the filling fully before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can split or burst in hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so the rolls stay intact while frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, flour, sauce, ketchup):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, sauce, ketchup. 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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