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Venison or Mutton Croquettes

A baked meat croquette made with minced mutton or venison, breadcrumbs, egg, currant jelly, and gravy or sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Venison or Mutton Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced meat, bread crumbs, beaten egg, and currant jelly.

  2. If the mixture is too dry, add a little gravy or sweet milk.

  3. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Bake

  1. Place the rolls on a baking sheet and bake 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced venison or mutton
Provides the main meat body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold its shape when shaped into rolls.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the rolls keep their form while baking.
Currant jelly
Adds a touch of sweetness and fruity flavor that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Adding gravy or sweet milk. Lean meat dries out easily, so the mixture can crumble when shaped. Adding liquid only when it is too dry keeps it moist and cohesive without making it soggy, since bread crumbs and egg can only bind so much moisture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pumpkinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, egg, milk. 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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