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Cheese Macaroni Croquettes

Cheese macaroni croquettes are fried balls of macaroni, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Macaroni Croquettes

six portions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, about 45 minutes, then chop finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour and milk, and stir until thickened.

  3. Mix in the cheese, chopped macaroni, egg yolk, and seasonings.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool on a plate.

Shape and fry

  1. Divide into six portions and shape into croquettes.

  2. Brush each croquette with beaten egg, coat with breadcrumbs, and fry in deep fat.

  3. Garnish with small pieces of macaroni and 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the bulk and a firm, starchy body that holds the croquette together.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and helps the mixture set and bind as it cools.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that gives the mixture its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps form the smooth base sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches the mixture and helps bind it while setting during cooking.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape and can crack or leak during frying. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the croquettes keep their form.

“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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