Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbread Croquettes

A fried croquette made with sweetbreads, milk, egg yolks, butter, flour, parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Sweetbread Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Sweetbread Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads and chop them finely.

  2. Scald the milk carefully to avoid scorching.

  3. Rub the butter and flour together.

  4. Stir the butter-flour mixture into the milk.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Add the egg yolks, sweetbreads, and seasonings to the mixture. Mix well and let cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette into the egg white.

  3. Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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

Sweetbreads
Provide the main meaty filling that gives the croquettes their body and flavour.
Milk
Forms the smooth, thickened base that binds the filling together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the filling so it holds its shape.
Flour
Thickens the milk with the butter, giving the filling structure so it can be shaped.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling and its smooth texture.

The step that matters

Scalding the milk. Milk scorches easily on direct heat, and scorched proteins taste bitter and stick to the pan. Heating gently and stirring keeps the milk smooth and ready to thicken with the butter-flour mixture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

More sweetbread croquettes recipes

Chicken 7 See all 61 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes