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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried roll of macaroni, ham, cheese, and sauce coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and cheese work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni and ham

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni in a sieve.

  3. Chop the ham.

  4. Cut the macaroni into small pieces.

  5. Mix the chopped ham and small macaroni pieces together.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the white sauce.

  2. Add the cheese to the sauce.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg yolks with a little milk.

  4. Combine the sauce with the macaroni.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Stir over low heat for a few minutes.

  7. Transfer the mixture to a dish to cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small rolls.

  2. Brush the rolls with egg white.

  3. Roll the rolls in breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the rolls in deep fat.

  5. Serve the croquettes very hot.

  6. Garnish with fried parsley.

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 + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Naples macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes their body once cooked and cut.
White sauce
Binds the macaroni, ham and cheese together into a mixture that holds its shape.
Eggs
The yolks enrich and bind the filling, while the white is used to help breadcrumbs stick.
Cooked ham
Adds savoury flavour and a meaty bite to the filling.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and savoury flavour, and helps the filling set as it cools.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, loose filling is too soft to roll and will leak or tear in hot fat. Cooling lets the starch in the white sauce firm up so the rolls hold their shape while 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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