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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small meatballs of veal mixed with onion, parsley, milk, flour, butter, egg, and bread crumbs, then fried.

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

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop veal very fine.

  2. Add a little chopped onion and parsley.

  3. Mix milk with flour and butter in a saucepan.

  4. Cook until thickened, then stir into the meat mixture.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip each ball in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Veal
Provides the main meaty body that the croquettes are formed from.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a paste that helps hold the filling together.
Milk
Cooked with the flour, it forms a moist binding sauce that keeps the filling tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture in the filling.
Egg
Coats each ball so the bread crumbs adhere and the crust holds together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. Hot oil sets and browns the crumb coating quickly, so it crisps without soaking up grease. Oil that is too cool lets the coating absorb fat and turn soggy, while the filling needs time to heat through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, milk, flour, walnut, butter, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, milk, flour, walnut, butter, egg. 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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