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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried cheese balls coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk with the onion, then remove the onion.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and gradually pour in the milk.

  3. Stir in the cheese and season with salt and cayenne.

Shape and coat

  1. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

  2. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

  3. Dip each croquette in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep fat until golden brown, then drain on brown paper.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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

Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a binding mixture that holds the croquettes together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and forms the roux base with the flour.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the flour thickens into a smooth, creamy base.
Soft cheese
Adds rich flavour and melts into the sauce, giving the filling its creamy body.
Beaten egg (in the method)
Helps the breadcrumb coating adhere and sets to form a crisp outer layer.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape and may burst or slump in the fat. Spreading it to cool lets it firm up enough to form neat croquettes that stay intact during frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

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