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Croquettes De Mouton

A fried mutton croquette made with flour, macaroni, butter, and curry seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes De Mouton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Blend the boiling milk with the flour and butter to make a sauce.

  2. Stir and let the sauce boil until very thick.

  3. Add the curry powder to the sauce, rubbing it smooth.

Form and fry

  1. Combine the mutton, macaroni, and parsley in a bowl, seasoning to taste.

  2. Set the mixture aside to cool.

  3. Roll the mixture into croquettes and fry them in boiling 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 milk and butter into a sauce that binds the filling.
Mutton
Provides the main savory filling that the croquettes are built around.
Macaroni
Adds body and texture to the filling, helping it hold together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour and softening texture.
Boiling milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until very thick. Flour thickens only when it boils, and a loose sauce will make the mixture too soft to roll and shape. Cooling it fully before rolling lets it firm up so the croquettes keep their form in hot fat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, butter, milk, 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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