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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are breaded, fried meat patties made from minced veal, onion juice, lemon juice, milk, flour, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the minced veal with salt, pepper, onion juice, and lemon juice.

  2. Heat the milk in a frying pan until it begins to boil.

  3. Mix the flour and olive oil until smooth, then stir the flour-oil mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Cook the sauce until smooth and thick.

  5. Add the seasoned veal and cook for 3 minutes.

  6. Beat the eggs.

  7. Pour half of the beaten eggs over the meat mixture, stirring well.

  8. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the cooled mixture into croquettes the size of an egg.

  2. Roll the croquettes in the remaining beaten eggs.

  3. Coat the croquettes with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat olive oil in a frying kettle to about 4 inches deep.

  2. Fry the croquettes in batches for 2 minutes.

  3. Drain the croquettes on brown paper for 1 minute.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  3. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes and provides their savory meaty flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that binds the veal together.
Milk
Becomes a thickened sauce that gives the filling a moist, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the filling and form a coating that helps bread crumbs stick.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape, so it can slump or break apart when rolled and fried. Letting it cool and firm up lets the croquettes keep their form.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lemon, milk, flour, olive, egg, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, milk, flour, olive, egg, bread. 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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