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Turkey Croquettes

A fried dish of shredded turkey mixed with ham, shallot, butter, flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turkey Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and sauté the minced shallot until soft.

  2. Add the flour and mix well, then stir in the shredded turkey and ham or bacon.

  3. Pour in about ½ pint of gravy made from the turkey bones and season well.

  4. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool, then shape it into small croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in the beaten egg and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until golden brown, about 8 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with thinly sliced rolled bacon.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold turkey
Forms the bulk of the croquettes and provides the main savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked, holding the croquettes together.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and mixture so it holds its shape for shaping.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the sautéed shallot into the filling.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky flavour that complements the turkey.
Beaten egg
Creates a coating that helps breadcrumbs stick and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The filling must cool and firm up enough to hold its shape; shaping a warm, soft mixture makes croquettes that slump or break apart in the hot oil.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, butter, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, butter, flour, 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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