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Pork Croquettes

A fried pork croquette made with butter, onion, flour, broth, pork, egg yolks, parsley, and coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Pork Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and cook the onion for 5 minutes without browning.

  2. Add the flour, stir, and cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Pour in the broth or boiling water and add the beef extract, salt, white pepper, mustard, and chopped pork.

  4. Stir and cook for 10 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks and parsley.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a flat dish and cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Once cold, form into 12 cork-shaped croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Serve with tomato, béchamel, or tartar sauce.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the main filling, giving the croquettes their savoury body and bite.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a stiff base that holds the mixture together when shaped.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm once cooled and shaped.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks gently in butter.

The step that matters

Cool the filling fully before shaping. A warm filling is soft and sticky, so the croquettes lose their shape and can split or burst in the hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so it holds its cork shape and keeps the coating intact while frying.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, beef, mustard, pork, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, beef, mustard, pork, 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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