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Macaroni and Cheese Croquettes

A baked or fried dish of macaroni mixed with cheese, ham, and sauce, formed into croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and cheese work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the macaroni, thick white sauce, ham, and cheese.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat for five minutes.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Once cooled, shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Finish the croquettes as you would with other croquettes.

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. Ham + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a firm, chewy body.
Thick white sauce
Binds the macaroni and cheese together and keeps the mixture moist.
Cheese
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the mixture bind as it cools.
Ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor and a bit of texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape and can crack or slump when shaped. Cooling lets the starch and sauce set so the croquettes keep their form through coating and frying.

“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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