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Celery Croquettes

A savory dish of celery shaped into croquettes coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Celery Croquettes

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Celery Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Cook the chopped celery in boiling salted water until soft. Drain and reserve the cooking water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour, reserved water, cream, and salt. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg to the mixture and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Shape and serve

  1. Combine the celery with the sauce mixture, then shape into croquettes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Serve with roast or game dishes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Celery
Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them their main flavour and body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a sauce that holds the celery together.
Egg
Adds structure, helping the mixture set firm when cooked.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and forms the base of the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg into the sauce. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a hot mixture and cooking gently keeps it thickened and firm. Overheating can make it curdle or leave the croquettes soft and hard to shape.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, 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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