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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made from cooked macaroni, cheese, and a butter‑flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and cheese, stirring until well blended.

  3. Gradually add the milk and onion juice, then season with salt and pepper.

Shape and fry

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then fold in the cooked macaroni.

  2. Shape the mixture into croquettes, then dip in breadcrumbs, beaten egg, and more breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep fat 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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

Butter
Enriches the flour base and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Milk or stock
Liquid that turns the flour and butter into a smooth, thick sauce.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the sauce bind and set.
Cooked macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the croquette filling.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool before shaping. A warm, loose sauce cannot hold its shape and may burst or leak during frying. Cooling lets the starch set the sauce firm enough to form and coat neatly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, pepper, cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, pepper, cheese. 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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