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Cheese Croquettes

Cheese croquettes are fried squares of cheese sauce thickened with roux, seasoned, and breaded.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour to make a roux, then gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks without beating.

  4. Add the grated cheese and stir until melted, then season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  5. Spread the mixture in a shallow pan and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, turn it out onto a board and cut into small squares or strips.

  2. Dip each piece in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in deep fat until golden brown and drain on paper towels.

Serve

  1. Serve as a cheese course or as a dish for lunch or supper.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 roux and adds richness and a nutty flavour to the base.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour, becomes a thick sauce to bind the cheese.
Mild cheese
Provides the main flavour and, once melted, the creamy body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture as it cools and sets.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. The mixture must be cold and firm to hold its shape. If it is warm or soft, the pieces lose their form and can break or leak in the hot fat, so the cheese base should set completely first.

“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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