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Meat Croquettes

Meat croquettes are fried balls of seasoned roast beef coated in breadcrumbs and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cold roast beef finely and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add one-third the quantity of bread crumbs and moisten with a little milk.

Shape and coat

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip each ball into beaten egg, then coat with fine pulverized cracker.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the main filling and meaty flavour of the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together when shaped.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the mixture stays soft and binds well.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the cracker crumbs stick to each ball.
Fine pulverized cracker
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown to a golden colour.

The step that matters

Coat the balls evenly before frying. Egg and cracker crumbs form the crust that holds the filling together. Gaps in the coating can let the filling leak and burn in the fat, so each ball should be fully covered.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, bread, milk, flour, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, bread, milk, flour, egg, butter. 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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