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Corned Beef Croquettes

A fried croquette made with corned beef, mashed potato, cream, egg, and parsley.

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 ↓

Corned Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the mashed potato and cream, stirring until well mixed and heated.

  3. Stir in the corned beef, salt, and pepper.

  4. Remove from heat and gently mix in the chopped parsley and beaten egg.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool, then form into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each croquette with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in deep, 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.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main savoury flavour and the meaty body of the filling.
Mashed potato
Forms the bulk of the filling and helps the croquettes hold their shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the potato mixture soft and smooth.
Egg
Binds the filling together and, with bread crumbs, forms a crisp coating when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the potato mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before forming. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to shape and may burst or slump in the oil. Cooling lets the starch firm up so the croquettes hold their form and fry evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, cream, egg, butter, 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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