Skip to main content
Main

Meat Croquettes

A dish of meat and potato croquettes fried in lard, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the meat finely.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with the mashed potatoes, dripping, salt, and pepper.

  3. Form the mixture into small rolls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the rolls in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the rolls in boiling lard until golden brown.

  3. Fry the parsley for garnish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 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

Meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Potatoes
Add bulk and a soft, moist interior that holds the mixture together.
Dripping
Adds fat for richness and moisture inside the croquettes.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs stick to the rolls.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the rolls in boiling lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp and brown the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs more fat and turns greasy before the centre heats through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, parsley, pepper. 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.

More meat croquettes recipes

Cold 9Australian 3 See all 60 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes