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Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes are small fried meatballs made from cold beef, stale bread, eggs, and seasonings, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Beef Croquettes

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold beef finely.

  2. Soak the stale bread in hot stock, then add it to the chopped beef.

  3. Mix in the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, pepper, salt, and onion juice.

  4. Once the mixture is cool enough to handle, form it into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in breadcrumbs, then dip in beaten eggs, and roll in breadcrumbs again.

  2. Fry the croquettes in deep hot fat until golden brown.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. For the tomato sauce, cook the tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, and parsley for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan, add flour, and cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Stir in the strained tomato mixture, season, and serve around the croquettes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Beef
Provides the bulk and savoury flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Yolks bind the filling and the whole eggs form a coating that helps breadcrumbs stick.
Stale bread
Soaked in stock, it absorbs liquid and keeps the filling moist and tender.
Butter
Fat that, cooked with flour, forms a roux to thicken the tomato sauce.
Flour
Thickens the tomato sauce when cooked with butter.
Tomatoes
Supply the acidity and body of the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes in deep hot fat until golden brown. Hot fat sears the breadcrumb coating quickly so it browns and seals before the filling overheats or the croquette absorbs grease. Fat that is too cool produces soggy, greasy coats.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, bread, pepper, tomato, sauce, butter. 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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