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Veal Croquettes

A fried patty of veal, breadcrumbs, egg, and milk, seasoned with onion juice and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,841 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove fat and gristle from the veal and chop finely.

  2. Heat the milk, veal, and breadcrumbs in a pan.

  3. Add the egg and onion juice, and season with salt.

  4. Mix until the mixture is soft enough to drop from a spoon.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Form and fry

  1. Once cool, form into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with fine cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil or fat until golden brown.

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. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Veal + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meaty base that gives the croquettes their main flavor and body.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the milk and bind with the egg so the mixture holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and sets during cooking to hold the croquettes firm.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture, keeping the croquettes tender inside.

The step that matters

Mix until the mixture is soft enough to drop from a spoon. Too stiff a mixture will crack and fall apart when formed, while the right softness lets it hold together once chilled and coated. Cooling firms the starch and proteins so the croquettes keep their shape in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, milk):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, milk. 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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