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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are small, breaded, fried meat patties made with veal, milk, flour, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding flour, and gradually stirring in the milk until thickened.

  2. Combine the white sauce with the chopped veal, parsley, salt, white pepper, and onion extract.

  3. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in beaten eggs, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in deep hot 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes and provides the savoury filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a white sauce that binds the veal together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds fat for flavour and a tender texture.
Eggs (in the method)
Act as a binder for the breadcrumb coating so it adheres during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes in deep hot lard until golden brown. The oil or fat must be hot enough to brown the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb excess fat and turn greasy, and the filling may heat through unevenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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