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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small rolls of veal mixed with eggs, cream, butter, and seasonings, coated in cracker dust and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the veal, eggs, cream, melted butter, salt, pepper, and sage or thyme until well combined.

  2. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each roll in cracker dust.

  2. Dip each roll in beaten egg.

  3. Coat again with cracker dust.

  4. Fry the rolls 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the body of the croquette, giving it a meaty filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the coating adhere and set when fried.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the rolls in hot lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the cracker coating quickly. If it is too cool, the rolls absorb fat and turn greasy before the crust sets and the interior cooks through.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, cream, butter, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, cream, butter, pepper. 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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