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Hard-boiled Eggs

A fried or baked croquette made from a mixture of minced hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, ox tongue, ham or anchovies, thick white sauce, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Hard-boiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince hard-boiled eggs and mix with minced cooked mushrooms, ox tongue, ham, or anchovies.

  2. Moisten the mixture with thick white sauce and season with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  3. Chill the mixture until firm, then divide into portions.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip the croquettes in beaten egg.

  3. Coat the croquettes with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the croquettes in hot fat until golden.

Other forms

  1. For coquilles, place the mixture in buttered shells.

  2. Bake the coquilles in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. For bouchees, fill little pastry cases with the mixture.

  4. Heat the bouchees similarly.

  5. For rissoles, wrap the mixture in puff pastry.

  6. Fry the rissoles.

  7. For beignets, dip the mixture in light batter.

  8. Fry the beignets like croquettes.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the bulk of the filling and set firm when chilled.
Thick white sauce
Binds the minced filling and adds moisture so it holds its shape.
Egg
Beaten egg coats the croquettes so bread crumbs adhere and brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until firm. A soft filling will not hold its shape when coated and fried, and it may burst or leak fat. Chilling lets the starch in the white sauce and the egg set so the portions can be shaped cleanly.

“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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