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Lamb Croquettes

Small fried patties of lamb, parsley, and stock coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and lightly fry the onion.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the stock and boil gently for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring briskly.

  3. Add the lamb, parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Stir until well mixed and cool on a plate.

Coat and fry

  1. Form the mixture into cork-shaped pieces, coat with egg and breadcrumbs, and fry in hot fat for 4 to 5 minutes.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 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

Cooked lamb
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock into a binding paste for the filling.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour, and with the flour sets a firm, cohesive mixture.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere to the shaped pieces.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried in hot fat.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. The mixture must be cooled so it firms up enough to hold a cork shape. Shaping a warm, soft filling makes it slump and break apart in the fat.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, 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.

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