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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried dish of macaroni mixed with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce, eggs, cheese, and seasonings, formed into croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into small pieces and boil in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain and rinse in cold water for 15 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. In a double boiler, heat milk.

  2. Rub together butter and flour, then stir into hot milk until thick.

  3. Add egg yolks and cook for a moment longer.

  4. Remove from heat, then add cheese, salt, and pepper.

  5. Drain and shake macaroni, cut into fine pieces, and stir into the mixture.

  6. Let cool, then form into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in deep hot oil 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquette, giving it body and a firm, chewy texture when cut fine.
Flour
Cooked with butter and hot milk, it thickens the sauce so the filling holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the macaroni together.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the filling, while the whole egg used for dipping helps bread crumbs adhere.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, improving flavour and smoothness.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before forming croquettes. A hot, loose filling is soft and sticky, so croquettes may slump or split. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up enough to hold its shape through coating and frying.

“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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