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Italian Beep Croquettes

A savory dish of beef and bread crumbs formed into croquettes, fried and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Italian Beep Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, combine the chopped beef, soaked bread crumbs, fried onion, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture is smooth.

  3. Add the stewed tomatoes and egg yolk, mixing well.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool, then shape it into croquettes.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the croquettes in bread crumbs and fry them in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with mushroom or caper sauce.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roast beef
Provides the main meaty flavour and bulk of the croquette filling.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in stock, they add moisture and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture together and adds richness to help it hold when shaped and fried.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness once fried in butter.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooling before shaping. The mixture must cool enough to firm up before shaping; a warm, soft filling is hard to form and can split or slump in the hot fat, so the croquettes may lose their shape while frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, butter, pepper, parsley, tomato, 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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