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Croquettes an Fmancidre

Croquettes à la Manciarde are fried balls of minced livers, sweetbread, mushrooms, truffles, and shallot, bound with butter, flour, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Croquettes an Fmancidre

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mince the livers, sweetbread, mushrooms, truffles, and shallot very finely.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  4. Mix in the flour until lightly browned.

  5. Add the minced mixture and a little truffle essence.

  6. Simmer for 10 minutes while stirring.

  7. Pour in the light wine.

  8. Simmer gently for a few more minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. Let the mixture cool and stiffen.

  2. Mold it into small balls.

  3. Fry the balls until golden brown.

  4. Serve hot, garnished 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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Livers
Give the filling its rich, savoury body and meaty flavour.
Sweetbread
Adds a tender, delicate texture to the minced filling.
Butter
Carries the flavour and helps brown the flour for the base.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it can cool, stiffen and hold its shape.
Light wine
Adds acidity and aroma as it reduces into the filling.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and stiffen before shaping. The filling must be cool and firm enough to hold its shape. If shaped while warm and soft, the balls can slump or break apart in the hot fat, because the flour-thickened mixture sets only as it cools.

“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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