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Veal Croquettes

A fried croquette made with veal, butter, flour, milk, onion, parsley, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the milk, chopped onion, and parsley; boil until thick.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the eggs, chopped veal, salt, and pepper.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then shape into oblong croquettes.

  3. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in bread or cracker crumbs.

Fry and store

  1. Fry in hot lard for a few minutes until golden brown.

  2. These can be stored and reheated in the oven when needed.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 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

Veal
Provides the main body and meaty filling of the croquette.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth paste that holds the filling together.
Milk
Forms the thick sauce base that binds the veal and sets when cooled.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, helping croquettes hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps form the roux.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can break apart or stick during dipping and frying. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the croquettes keep their form.

Swap the onion

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

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

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