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Croquettes of Veal

Croquettes of veal are small meatballs made from roasted veal and mushrooms, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Croquettes of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the roasted veal into very small dice or mince it finely.

  2. Add half the quantity of chopped mushrooms, truffles, or red tongue.

  3. Boil enough sauce until it thickens, then mix in the meat and season with pepper and nutmeg.

  4. Spread the mixture on a dish about 1 inch thick and smooth it out.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and chill in the refrigerator.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cooled, cut into about 24 pieces and shape into corks, balls, or pears.

  2. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat hog's lard until hot and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  2. Drain on a napkin to absorb excess grease and serve immediately 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. 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted veal
Provides the main meat body that the croquettes are built around.
Mushrooms, truffles, or red tongue
Adds earthy flavour and extra texture to the meat filling.
Sauce (allemande, bechamel, veloute, or supreme)
Binds the minced meat into a firm, moldable filling when thickened and chilled.
Beaten egg
Forms a coating that helps bread crumbs adhere to each croquette.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden crust when fried.

The step that matters

Chilling the filling until fully cooled. The sauce-bound mixture must be firm before shaping; if it is still warm or soft, the pieces will lose their shape and may break open in the hot fat.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, sauce, pepper, bread, egg, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, sauce, pepper, bread, 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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