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Mutton or Lamb Croquettes

A fried croquette made with finely chopped mutton or lamb, rice, capers, lemon juice, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Mutton or Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the chopped meat, cooked rice, capers, lemon juice, white sauce, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Refrigerate the mixture until cold.

Shape and coat

  1. Take a full tablespoon of the mixture and shape it into a cylinder.

  2. Roll the croquette in finely sifted bread crumbs.

  3. Dip the croquette in the beaten egg, ensuring it is fully coated.

  4. Roll the croquette again in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rice + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat
Forms the main body and savory flavor of the croquette.
Cooked rice
Adds bulk and a soft texture that holds the mixture together.
White sauce
Binds the filling and keeps it moist and creamy.
Egg
Forms a coating that helps the bread crumbs adhere and brown when fried.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until cold before shaping. A cold, firm mixture holds its cylinder shape. If it is warm or soft, the croquettes can slump or split and the coating can slip off in the hot oil.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, capers, sauce, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, capers, sauce, pepper, bread, 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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