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Ham Croquettes

Ham croquettes are small fried balls of finely chopped ham coated in flour, egg, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ham Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cooked ham very fine.

  2. Season the ham with pepper and mustard.

Shape and coat

  1. Flour your hands and form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in the beaten egg.

  3. Roll the balls in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot lard until 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.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cooked ham
Forms the main body of the croquette and supplies its savory flavor.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder that helps the cracker crumbs adhere to the balls.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat to brown the coating and adds richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb fat and turn greasy before they crisp.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, flour, 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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