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Egg Croquettes

Egg croquettes are small fried cakes made from boiled eggs, preserved mushrooms, and a roux, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Egg Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the eggs finely or rub them through a wire sieve.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth and thick.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the chopped eggs, mushrooms, raw egg, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small croquettes and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Heat the frying fat in a pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  3. Serve with fried parsley on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the bulk of the filling and a firm, rich body once chopped.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour through the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable white sauce that binds the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Raw egg
Binds the filling so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Preserved mushrooms
Add concentrated savoury, earthy flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling before shaping. If the sauce is not cooked thick and then cooled enough, the mixture stays too soft to shape and can burst or spread in the hot fat. Egg-based fillings also set as they cool, so the raw egg must be fully mixed in off the heat to avoid scrambling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mushroom, butter, flour, milk, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mushroom, butter, flour, milk, nutmeg, 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.

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