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Hard-Boiled Eggs

A fried croquette made from minced hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, ox tongue, ham, anchovies, and thick white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Hard-Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mince hard-boiled eggs and mix with minced cooked mushrooms, ox tongue, ham, anchovies, and thick white sauce.

  2. Season the mixture and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Divide into portions and shape into croquettes.

  2. Coat with egg and roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot fat 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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the bulk of the filling and give the croquettes their body.
Thick white sauce
Binds the minced ingredients together so the mixture holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep savory note to the filling.
Cooked mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Letting the filling cool before shaping. A warm, loose mixture is soft and sticky, so the croquettes can slump or split. Cooling lets the white sauce firm up so the portions hold their shape and the coating stays intact during 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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