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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small meatballs made from minced veal, milk, flour, and eggs, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal mixture

  1. In a bowl, 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. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and olive oil until smooth, then stir into the boiling milk.

  4. Cook the mixture until smooth and thick, then add the seasoned veal and cook for 3 minutes.

  5. Beat 3 eggs together.

  6. Pour half over the meat mixture, stir well, and set aside to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into croquettes the size of an egg.

  2. Roll the croquettes in the remaining beaten eggs, then coat 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 on brown paper for 1 minute and 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquette and gives it a savory, meaty flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stiff binder that holds the mixture together when cooled.
Milk
Cooked with the flour into a thick base that keeps the croquettes moist inside.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that helps bread crumbs stick and brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The thickened mixture must cool and firm up before shaping; if it is still warm and soft, the croquettes will slump and may break apart in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, lemon, milk, flour, olive, 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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