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Veal, Croquettes

A fried dish of veal, onion, and milk formed into croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal, Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and minced onion, cooking until combined.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the veal and egg.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into oblong croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped cooked veal
Provides the main body and meaty filling of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding base that holds the filling together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with the flour and keeps the filling moist.
Egg
Binds the cooled mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps form a smooth starting roux.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the veal and egg. If the base is still hot, the egg can scramble and the mixture stays too soft to shape, so the croquettes may break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, milk, egg, 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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