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Lamb Croquettes

Lamb croquettes are small, breaded, fried meatballs made from cooked lamb, parsley, shallot, stock, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the onion lightly, then stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the stock, boiling gently for 3 to 4 minutes while stirring briskly.

  4. Add the lamb, parsley, salt, and pepper, stirring until well mixed.

Shape and cool

  1. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

  2. Form the mixture into cork-shaped pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each piece with egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat for 4 to 5 minutes until golden brown.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked lamb
Provides the main filling and meaty flavour of the croquettes.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour when it is cooked with the onion.
Flour
Cooks with the butter and stock to thicken the mixture so it holds its shape.
Stock
Adds liquid that, once boiled with the flour, forms a thick binding base.
Egg
Acts as the binder that helps the breadcrumb coating stick to the pieces.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture will not hold its cork shape and can break apart in the hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened base firm up so the pieces keep their form while frying.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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