Name: Croquettes
Ingredients: meat (finely chopped); bread or cracker crumbs; beaten eggs (slightly salted); boiling fat for frying

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes

Ingredients

meat (finely chopped)
bread or cracker crumbs
beaten eggs (slightly salted)
boiling fat for frying

Directions

Mix the finely chopped meat with other ingredients until moist but shapeable.
Take about 1 tablespoon of the mixture and shape it into a cylinder using both hands.
Roll the shaped croquettes gently on a board sprinkled with crumbs.
Let them rest on the board until all are shaped, reshaping any that flatten.
Dip each croquette in beaten eggs, then roll in crumbs until fully coated.
Fry in boiling fat in small batches, ensuring they do not touch each other, until golden brown.
Remove and drain on paper.

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.

Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

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