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Walnut Croquettes

A fried croquette made with bread crumbs, milk, nuts, sherry, and eggs, coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Walnut Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine bread crumbs and milk in a double boiler; stir over heat until thick and smooth.

  2. Add salt, chopped nuts, and sherry; stir until hot.

  3. Remove from heat and quickly stir in beaten egg yolks.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then shape into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with dried bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown and serve with sauce piquante.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Thicken the milk into a firm, smooth base that holds the croquettes together.
Eggs
Egg yolks are stirred in off the heat to enrich the mixture and bind it once cooled.
Chopped nuts
Provide the main flavour and a bit of texture inside the croquettes.
Milk
Adds moisture so the bread crumbs form a smooth, thick mixture.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks scramble if they meet high heat, leaving lumps in the mixture. Removing the pan from the heat first and stirring quickly keeps the mixture smooth and evenly bound.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sherry, egg):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sherry, 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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