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Veal Croquettes

A dish of veal mixture shaped into croquettes, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the veal until it falls from the bones. Let it cool and then chop it finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour. Stir until combined.

  2. Gradually add the milk, chopped onion, and parsley. Cook until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the eggs, salt, nutmeg, pepper, and chopped veal.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes, dip in beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in deep lard 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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Veal
Provides the main meat filling that gives the croquettes their body and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the filling tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that binds the filling together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Eggs
Bind the filling and, when beaten, help the bread crumbs adhere to the outside.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened before adding the eggs and veal. The flour must be fully cooked with the milk so the sauce thickens and holds the filling together. Adding eggs to a hot mixture off the heat, with the sauce properly thickened, helps keep the filling stable so the croquettes hold their shape when shaped and fried.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, milk, parsley, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, milk, parsley, egg, nutmeg. 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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