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Another Veal Croquette

A veal croquette made with finely chopped veal, breadcrumbs, mace, pepper, salt, egg, fried in fat and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Another Veal Croquette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croquettes

  1. Chop the veal very fine.

  2. Mix in half as much bread crumbs as veal, and season with mace, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add one raw egg and mix well.

  4. Form the mixture into thin pieces about three inches long.

  5. Dip each piece in egg and then in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve in a small flat dish, garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Forms the main body of the croquette, giving it a meaty filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so the croquettes hold their shape.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape while frying.

The step that matters

Forming and coating the pieces. The mixture is soft, so pieces should be shaped thin and evenly and coated fully in egg and crumbs; otherwise they may fall apart or cook unevenly in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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