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Thick White Sauce Fob Croquettes

A fried croquette made with meat or fish coated in breadcrumbs and served with a thick white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Thick White Sauce Fob Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the salt and pepper.

  3. Slowly pour in the cold milk, stirring until the mixture thickens.

Shape and fry

  1. In a bowl, combine the meat or fish with the thick white sauce.

  2. Rub in the egg and mix in breadcrumbs.

  3. Shape the mixture into croquettes and fry in deep fat until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux, adding richness to the sauce.
Flour
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the mixture together.
Milk
Liquid that, heated with the roux, forms the body of the thick white sauce.
Egg
Binder that helps the croquette mixture hold its shape while frying.
Meat or fish
Main filling that gives the croquettes their substance and flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the cold milk, stirring until the mixture thickens. Adding cold milk gradually while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly before it swells as the mixture heats, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce.

“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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