Skip to main content
Main

Creole Croquettes

A baked croquette made with finely chopped beef or veal, rice, and cabbage leaves, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Creole Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove fat and gristle from the beef or veal and pass the meat through a meat chopper twice.

  2. Wash the rice thoroughly and add it to the meat along with the seasonings; mix well.

Wrap the croquettes

  1. Cut out the thick vein from the cabbage leaves and parboil them for 2 minutes.

  2. Drain the cabbage leaves and place a heaping tablespoon of the meat mixture in each leaf; fasten with a toothpick.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the wrapped croquettes in a baking dish, strain tomato sauce over them, cover closely, and simmer in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

Raw beef or veal
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Uncooked rice
Absorbs juices from the meat and adds bulk and texture to the filling.
Cabbage leaves
Wrap the filling and hold it together while it cooks.

The step that matters

Cover closely and simmer in the oven. Keeping the dish covered traps steam so the uncooked rice softens fully and the filling stays moist rather than drying out during the long bake.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, rice, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, rice, tomato, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes