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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small meatballs coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the binder

  1. Mix the milk and flour in a saucepan with a piece of butter the size of an egg; cook until thickened.

  2. Stir the thickened mixture into the minced veal.

Shape and chill

  1. Roll the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip the balls in a beaten egg mixed with a little milk, then roll in brown bread crumbs.

  3. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot cottolene 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 protein and meaty body of the croquettes.
Milk and flour
Cooked together into a thickened binder that holds the minced veal in shape.
Egg
Coats the balls so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.
Brown bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk and flour until thickened. The flour starch must be cooked until the mixture thickens fully. Under-cooked starch stays loose and runny, so the mixture will not hold its shape when rolled and fried.

“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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