Skip to main content
Main

Chicken, Ham or Veal Croquettes

A fried snack of bread, meat, egg, and milk coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chicken, Ham or Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the grated bread in hot milk.

  2. Mix the soaked bread with the beaten egg and the finely chopped meat.

  3. Roll the mixture in fine cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. 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. 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. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated bread
Soaked in milk, it binds the meat and keeps the croquettes moist inside.
Finely chopped meat
Forms the main filling of the croquettes, giving them their savory flavor and body.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Fine cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browning outer coating during frying.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy before the coating browns. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, sealing in moisture and producing an even golden color.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes