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Oyster Croquettes

A fried croquette made with oysters, veal, butter, cracker crumbs, egg yolks, and onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Oyster Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the oysters and veal very fine.

  2. Soak the cracker crumbs in the oyster liquor.

  3. Mix all the ingredients together, including melted butter.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg, then roll in cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard 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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and the moist, savoury body of the filling.
Cooked veal
Adds bulk and meaty texture to the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and thicken the filling, then form a crisp, browned coating.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for flavour and a tender interior.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. The croquettes are already cooked, so the frying only needs to brown the coating. If the lard is not hot enough, the crumbs absorb fat and turn greasy, and the filling may fall apart before the coating sets.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, veal, butter, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, veal, 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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