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Egg Croquettes

Egg croquettes are small, fried egg-based cakes served with tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Egg Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the eggs hard, remove the shells, and pass them through a potato ricer.

  2. Scald the milk in a double boiler, then add the melted flour and butter mixture.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

  4. Turn the mixture onto a platter to cool and let it stand for 3 hours.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into egg-like forms, roll in beaten egg and bread crumbs, and fry in deep fat.

Serve

  1. Serve with well-seasoned tomato sauce and Worcestershire 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

Eggs
Provide the main body and structure of the croquettes when hard-boiled and mashed.
Milk
Forms the moist base that binds the mashed eggs into a soft, spreadable mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk with the butter, giving the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening texture and carrying flavour through the mixture.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand and cool. The mixture must cool and set firmly before shaping; if it is still warm and soft, the forms will slump and may split or burst during frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

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