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Macaroni Croquettes

Deep-fried croquettes made from macaroni, milk, butter, flour, cheese, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into pieces about two inches long.

  2. Boil the macaroni in a kettle of boiling water for 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni in a colander and cut it into pieces half an inch long.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour until smooth.

  3. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling milk, stirring continually until it thickens.

  4. Add the cheese, macaroni, salt, and pepper, and cook for one more minute.

  5. Turn the mixture out onto a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in egg, then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep hot oil 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquette, giving it body and a chewy, substantial texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy binding sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the mixture together when cooled and shaped.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps the flour blend smoothly.
Egg
Acts as a coating binder so the bread crumbs adhere and brown during frying.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and some richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose filling is too soft to hold its shape, so it can slump or split when rolled and fried. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce set so the croquettes keep their form.

“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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