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Dessert

Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried rolls of soft cheese mixed with flour, salt, cayenne, and folded egg whites, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Force the cheese through a potato ricer.

  2. Add flour, salt, and cayenne to the cheese.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Toss the mixture onto a board covered with cracker crumbs.

  2. Shape into a long roll using your hands and cut into 1½-inch pieces.

  3. Cover the ends with cracker crumbs.

  4. Fry in deep fat and drain on brown paper.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,860 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Mild, soft cheese
Forms the body of the croquettes and provides their rich, savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cheese so the mixture holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they lighten the mixture and help it puff slightly when cooked.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that gives lightness; overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the croquettes dense and heavy.

“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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