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Walnut Croquettes

A fried croquette made with bread crumbs, milk, walnuts, brandy, egg yolks, and coated in egg and crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Walnut Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a double boiler, stir together bread crumbs and enough milk to make a thick smooth batter.

  2. Add salt and chopped walnuts, then moisten with brandy or sherry.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool, then form into croquettes.

Coat and fry

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

  2. Fry in deep hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve with your choice of sauce.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Bind the walnuts into a thick batter that holds the croquette shape.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set firm when cooled and fried.
Chopped walnuts
Add crunchy texture and a rich, nutty flavor to the filling.
Brandy or sherry
Adds aroma and a little depth of flavor to the walnut filling.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before forming. The batter must cool and firm up enough to hold its shape; if it is still warm and soft, the croquettes will slump and may break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, brandy, egg):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, brandy, 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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