Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made from macaroni, ham, cheese, and a roux, served with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Stir in the stock and boil for three minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Add the finely chopped ham and macaroni; season and mix over the heat.

  2. Cool slightly and stir in the cheese.

  3. Turn the mixture onto a plate and let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into small cork-shaped croquettes, then dip each in egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in very hot deep fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve on lace paper and 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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes their body.
Butter
Fat that enriches the flavour and carries the flour to make the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Stock or water
Liquid that hydrates the flour and turns the base into a thick sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the filling bind when stirred in.
Cooked ham
Contributes meaty, savoury flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, loose filling cannot hold its shape and may burst or spread in the hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce set firm enough to form and coat cleanly.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parmesan cheese, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parmesan cheese, butter, flour, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes