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Egg Croquets

Egg croquettes are small fried cakes made from mashed eggs, ham, flour, and milk, coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Egg Croquets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs and ham finely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the mixture thickens.

  5. Fold in the chopped eggs and ham.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in cracker crumbs, then in the beaten egg, and again in the cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot lard or butter 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Mixed with butter to form a roux that thickens the milk into a binding sauce.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form the roux and adds richness to the filling.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and, as it heats, thickens into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main filling, setting firm in the sauce and giving body to the croquettes.
Beaten egg
Forms a binding coat that helps the cracker crumbs adhere before frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk into the roux. Adding the milk too quickly or without steady stirring can leave lumps. The filling must be thick enough to hold its shape, or the croquettes may fall apart in the coating and frying.

“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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