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Turkey, Croquettes

A fried croquette made with minced turkey, ham, shallots, and egg, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Turkey, Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and sauté the minced shallots.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Stir in the minced turkey and ham.

  4. Pour in about ½ cup of gravy made from turkey bones and trimmings.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  7. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape it into small croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg.

  3. Coat with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, about 8 minutes.

  5. Garnish with parsley stems.

  6. Serve.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold turkey
Provides the main body and bulk of the croquette filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the shallots and the base of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds together when shaped.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firmly when heated.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat to the filling.
Beaten egg
Creates a sticky layer that helps bread crumbs adhere to the croquettes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can fall apart in the hot oil. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so the croquettes keep their form while frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, shallot, butter, flour, egg, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, shallot, butter, flour, egg, bread. 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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