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Italian Beef Croquettes

Italian Beef Croquettes are fried balls of finely chopped roast beef mixed with bread crumbs, onion, tomatoes, and seasonings.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

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

  2. Stir over low heat until smooth.

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

Shape and fry

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then shape into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling oil until golden brown.

  4. 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 filling and meaty flavour of the croquettes.
Stale bread crumbs
Soaked in stock, they bind the mixture and keep the filling moist.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and colour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooling before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm up before shaping; a warm, soft mixture will not hold its shape and may crack or fall apart in the hot oil.

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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