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Curry Croquettes

Croquettes of minced cold meat and rice flavoured with curry powder, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Curry Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice and boil it in ½ pint of stock or water until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.

Make the curry base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the onion until just coloured.

  2. Add the curry powder and lemon juice, stirring over low heat for 1 minute.

  3. Stir in the flour and add ¼ cup of stock, stirring until boiling and thickened.

  4. Mix in the minced meat and rice, season well to form a thick paste.

  5. If too liquid, add the yolk of an egg and cook gently, stirring until thickened.

Shape and fry

  1. Turn the mixture onto a plate and shape it into a smooth flat cake.

  2. Cut into equal portions and roll each into a cork shape.

  3. Coat each shape in breadcrumbs, brush with egg, and crumb again.

  4. Fry in hot deep fat until golden brown.

  5. Serve on lace paper and garnish 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the stock and binds with the meat to give the croquettes a thick, firm body.
Minced meat
Provides the main filling, giving the croquettes their substance and savoury flavour.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion, carrying flavour and helping the curry base cook smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce that holds the mixture together as a paste.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Egg
Binds the mixture when it is too loose and, brushed on, helps breadcrumbs stick for an even golden crust.

The step that matters

Thickening the paste before shaping. If the mixture is too loose it will not hold its cork shape and may break or soak up oil when fried. Cooking it gently until thick lets the starch set, so the croquettes hold together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, lemon, butter, flour, egg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, lemon, butter, flour, 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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