Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbread Croquettes with Peas

Sweetbread croquettes are fried balls of sweetbread, egg yolk, butter, cracker crumbs, and cream, served with green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweetbread Croquettes with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Boil the sweetbreads until cooked.

  2. Chop the sweetbreads finely.

  3. Pound the chopped sweetbreads to a paste.

  4. Season the paste with salt and pepper.

  5. Mix in the egg yolks, butter, cracker crumbs, and cream.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into balls or cork shapes.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg.

  3. Roll the ball in crumbs.

  4. Repeat the dipping and rolling process.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Arrange a border of green peas around the croquettes.

  3. Serve.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Form the main body of the croquettes, giving them a soft, rich filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist interior.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture so the paste stays soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fat until golden brown. The coating must be fully sealed and browned before the filling heats through. Fat that is too cool lets the croquettes soak up oil and fall apart, while fat that is too hot browns the outside before the centre warms.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, 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.

More sweetbread croquettes recipes

Chicken 7 See all 61 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes