Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni and Spaghetti Croquettes

A fried croquette made from cooked macaroni or spaghetti mixed with cheese, paprika, and white sauce, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cheese and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,987 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Macaroni and Spaghetti Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the cooked macaroni or spaghetti into small pieces.

  2. Plunge into boiling salted water and cook until tender.

  3. Drain and cool, then cut into small rings.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the macaroni with cheese and paprika.

  2. Add just enough heavy white sauce to hold the mixture together.

Shape and coat

  1. When cool, mold into croquettes and dip in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato, poultry, or mushroom sauce.

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. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + eggtop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Sauce and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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 macaroni or spaghetti
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a tender, starchy body.
Heavy white sauce
Binds the pasta and cheese so the mixture holds its shape when molded.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the filling.
Egg
Coats the croquettes so the breadcrumbs stick and form a crisp outer layer.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust around the soft filling.

The step that matters

Add just enough white sauce. Too much sauce makes the mixture soft and runny, so the croquettes lose their shape and burst during coating or frying. Too little leaves it crumbly and unable to hold together.

“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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes