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Veal Croquets

Veal croquets are small meatballs of boiled veal and mashed potatoes, coated in flour and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Croquets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the veal until very tender and chop it finely.

Shape

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped veal, mashed potatoes, butter, egg, salt, and pepper. Mix well and form the mixture into balls.

  2. Roll each ball in flour.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquets in 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Veal
Provides the main meaty filling and bulk of the croquette.
Mashed potatoes
Adds soft body and moisture to the filling, helping it hold together when shaped.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Egg
Binds the filling so the balls keep their shape.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown when fried.

The step that matters

Forming and rolling the balls. If the mixture is too wet or loose, the balls may fall apart in the hot lard. Mixing well and rolling each ball in flour gives a dry outer layer that holds its shape and browns evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, egg, pepper, flour. 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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