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Ham Croquettes

Ham croquettes made with chopped ham, eggs, mashed potatoes, parsley, and fried in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ham Croquettes

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ham Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the chopped ham, hard-boiled eggs, raw egg yolk, mashed potatoes, and parsley in a bowl, then season the mixture to taste.

  2. Flour your hands and roll the mixture into balls slightly larger than walnuts.

  3. Flour the surface of each ball.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat in a pan until smoking hot, then drop in a few balls at a time.

  2. Fry until they are a light brown.

  3. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  4. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 recipes

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

  5. Ham + potatotop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked ham
Provides the savoury meaty flavour that defines the croquette.
Cooked potatoes
Adds bulk and a soft, moist body that binds the filling.
Raw egg yolk
Helps bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry until light brown. Fat must be smoking hot before the balls go in, so the outside sets and browns quickly. Frying in small batches keeps the oil temperature from dropping, which would make the croquettes greasy and pale.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, parsley. 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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