Skip to main content
Main

Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small meatballs made with veal, ham, onion, spices, milk, eggs, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mince the cold veal, cold ham, and onion in a chopping bowl.

  2. Add mace, parsley, pepper, and salt to the mixture.

  3. Bring the milk or cream to a boil, then stir in the cold butter and the meat mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix with corn-starch or flour, then add to the mixture.

  5. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully.

  6. Remove from heat and spread on a platter to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, roll into balls and flatten each one.

  2. Dip the croquettes in egg and then in bread 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the croquettes together.
Milk or cream
Makes the filling moist and creamy, with a softer texture after cooking.
Corn-starch or flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when cooled and shaped.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to roll and flatten. Cooling lets the starch and egg set so the croquettes keep their shape in the hot lard.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, butter. 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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipes