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Sweetbread Croquettes

A fried croquette made from sweetbreads, mushrooms, cream, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Sweetbread Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweetbread Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads with a little lemon juice in the water.

  2. Transfer them to cold water, then remove the outer skin and membrane.

  3. Chop the sweetbreads finely and measure to make a pint.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, melt the butter, then add the flour and cream, stirring until smooth.

  2. Add the yolk of one egg, then season with salt, pepper, onion juice, parsley, and celery salt.

  3. Stir in the chopped sweetbreads and mushrooms, cooking for a few minutes.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool, then shape into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in bread crumbs, then in diluted egg, and again in bread crumbs.

  2. 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.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty filling that gives the croquettes their body and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth binding paste that holds the filling together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the filling soft and creamy when cooked.
Egg yolk
Enriches and binds the filling so the shaped croquettes hold their form.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the chopped filling.

The step that matters

Cool the filling before shaping. A hot, loose filling is too soft to hold its shape and can break apart or leak during coating and frying. Cooling lets the flour-thickened cream set so the croquettes keep their form.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, flour, cream, pepper, parsley, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, flour, cream, pepper, parsley, celery. 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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