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Meat Croquettes

A fried patty made from minced cold meat, bread crumbs, egg, and seasonings, coated in crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the cold meat as finely as possible.

  2. Soak the bread crumbs in boiling water until soft.

Mix and shape

  1. Mix the minced meat and soaked bread crumbs with a fork.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and onion if desired.

  3. Add the egg to the mixture and combine well.

  4. Shape the mixture into croquettes using your hands.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in the beaten egg yolk, then coat with rolled crackers.

  2. Fry in hot oil 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.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Soaked until soft, they bind the minced meat and keep the filling moist.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape.
Egg yolk
Brushed on before coating, it helps the crackers stick and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Shaping the croquettes. The mixture must be firm enough to hold its shape. Mixing in the egg helps bind it, and well-combined filling is less likely to crack or fall apart in hot oil.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, 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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