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Dessert

Almond Croquettes

Almond croquettes are small fried balls made from ground almonds, sugar, biscuits, wine, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Almond Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground almonds and castor sugar thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

  2. Gradually add the light wine and a little orange flower water.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Add the grated biscuits gradually until a stiff paste forms.

Shape and fry

  1. Divide the mixture into small pieces and roll them into balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, dust with flour, and fry in hot oil until golden.

  3. Drain on paper towels and serve hot.

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. Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the croquettes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the paste and help it hold its shape.
Sweet biscuits
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture into a stiff paste that can be shaped.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture brown when fried.
Whole egg
Beaten egg coating helps the flour dusting stick and promotes golden browning in the oil.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg whites in gently. Deflating the whipped egg whites by over-mixing releases their trapped air, making the paste denser and less light in texture.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, egg, biscuit, wine, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, egg, biscuit, wine, 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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