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Lamb Croquettes

Lamb croquettes are fried patties of lamb, butter, flour, milk, seasoning, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and milk, stirring continually until it boils.

  3. Stir in the spiced seasoning and salt.

Shape and fry

  1. Break the egg over the chopped lamb and pour the sauce over it, stirring thoroughly.

  2. Shape the mixture into croquettes of your desired size and place them in a cool area to harden.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Serve with green peas.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 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. Lamb + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Chopped lamb
Forms the main body and bulk of the croquettes, giving them their meaty flavour and filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that binds the lamb together so the croquettes hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooled, keeping the croquettes intact in the fat.
Milk
Combines with the flour to form the sauce, adding moisture and a smoother texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour into the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the croquettes harden before frying. Cooling lets the starch in the sauce and the egg set the mixture firm. If the croquettes go into the hot lard while soft, they can break apart or absorb excess fat.

“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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