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Croquets and Rissoles

Shrimp croquettes and rissoles made with shrimp, butter, spices, stale bread, milk, eggs, and breadcrumbs, then fried or poached.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Croquets and Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the shrimps with butter, mace, nutmeg, and cayenne until fine.

  2. Soak the stale bread in hot milk for 20 minutes.

  3. Make a dry panada with the soaked bread and mix it with the shrimp paste.

  4. Gradually mix in the whisked eggs until combined.

Shape and cook

  1. When cold and firm, roll the mixture into croquettes the size of olives.

  2. Dip in egg, coat with breadcrumbs, and fry or poach for 5-6 minutes.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh-shelled shrimps
Provide the main body and flavor of the croquettes once pounded into a paste.
Stale bread
Forms a dry panada that absorbs milk and helps bind the shrimp mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when shaped and cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Chill until cold and firm before shaping. The mixture is soft and sticky when freshly made. Chilling lets the fat firm up and the bread and egg set slightly, so the croquettes hold their shape and do not fall apart in the fryer or poacher.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, nutmeg, bread, milk, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, nutmeg, bread, milk, 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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