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Pork, Croquettes of

Pork croquettes are small pork cakes coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pork, Croquettes of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Lightly fry the onion.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Add the stock and boil gently for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring briskly.

Mix and shape

  1. Add the pork, sage, marjoram, salt and pepper.

  2. Stir until well mixed and cool on a plate.

  3. Form the mixture into cork-shaped pieces, coat with egg and breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat for 1 to 5 minutes until golden.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Shallot + marjoramtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked pork
Provides the main filling and savoury meaty flavour of the croquettes.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour while the flour is cooked into it.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a stiff binder that holds the filling together when cool.
Stock
Gives the binding paste its savoury flavour and, once boiled, a thick body.
Egg
Coats the shaped pieces so the breadcrumbs stick and brown during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried in hot fat.

The step that matters

Boiling the stock and flour paste. The flour must be cooked in boiling stock while stirred briskly, otherwise lumps form and the paste stays too loose. A thick, well-cooked binder is what lets the mixture hold its cork shape once cool.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, marjoram, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, marjoram, 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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