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Veal Croquettes

Veal croquettes are fried meat patties made from stewed veal, milk, egg yolks, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Fry the veal on one side until browned, then turn and fry the other side.

  2. Add ½ cup hot water, cover, and steam until cooked through.

  3. Once cooled, chop the veal and season with salt.

Make the custard base

  1. Scald 2 cups of milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat 4 egg yolks and slowly pour the scalded milk over them, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the mixture to the heat and stir until thickened.

  4. Stir in 2 cups of bread crumbs, then remove from heat.

  5. Add garlic, powdered cloves, nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon of butter to the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Incorporate the chopped veal into the mixture and mold into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their meaty flavor and texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk as they set with gentle heat, binding the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that thickens with the yolks and bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the thickened milk, firming the mixture so it holds its shape when molded.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to flavor and a softer interior.

The step that matters

Thickening the yolk and milk mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the milk is added too quickly or the heat is too high, the yolks can scramble. Stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth, which helps the croquettes hold together.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, egg, bread, clove, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, egg, bread, clove, nutmeg, butter. 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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