Skip to main content
Main

Sweetbread Croquettes

Sweetbread croquettes are fried, breaded meatballs made from sweetbreads, mushrooms, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Sweetbread Croquettes

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 ↓

Sweetbread Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in salt water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the sweetbreads in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and let cool, then trim off all fat and chop finely.

Make the filling

  1. Season with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, minced parsley, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix in the chopped canned mushrooms.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then add the flour and cook until it bubbles.

  4. Stir in the cream and jellied stock until smooth, then mix with the sweetbreads.

  5. Spread the mixture on a large dish and chill until cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Mold into croquettes, dip in beaten egg, then coat with cracker meal.

  2. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown and serve immediately.

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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Form the main body of the croquettes, giving a rich, tender filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce base and carries the flour for a smooth binding.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the cream and stock.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling stay soft and smooth.
Jellied stock
Adds savory flavor and body to the filling as it cools and sets.
Cracker meal
Forms a crisp, browned outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the filling until cool. The filling must be cold and firm enough to shape; warm filling is soft and can split or fall apart when molded and fried.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, mushroom, butter, flour, cream, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, mushroom, butter, flour, cream, 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.

More sweetbread croquettes recipes

Chicken 7 See all 61 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes