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Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes are meatballs of dressed beef coated in egg white and fried, served on parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Beef Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and fry until pale brown.

  3. Stir in the flour and moisten with stock or gravy.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and parsley.

  5. Add the minced beef and let it stew until the sauce is dry.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls or rolls.

  2. Dip each piece into the beaten egg white.

  3. Heat butter or lard in a frying pan.

  4. Gently place each ball in the pan.

  5. Dust each ball with flour.

  6. Roll the balls to brown evenly.

  7. Once browned, drain on a cloth.

Serve

  1. Serve on dressed parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dressed beef
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its meaty body.
Onions
Soften and brown in butter, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock or gravy so the filling binds and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onions and to the frying of the croquettes.
Beaten egg white
Coats the shaped pieces so the outside sets and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the sauce dry out before shaping. If the mixture is still wet, it will be too soft to form balls and may split or collapse in the frying pan. Stewing until the liquid has reduced gives a firm mixture that holds its shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, 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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