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Croquettes of Veal

A fried dish of veal and mushroom mixture shaped into croquettes, coated in breadcrumbs and served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Croquettes of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pot, combine the veal and mushrooms (or truffles/red tongue).

  2. Reduce the sauce by boiling until thick, then add the meat mixture to the sauce.

  3. Season with pepper and nutmeg, stirring well.

  4. Spread the mixture on a dish about 1 inch thick and smooth it out.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and chill in the refrigerator until firm.

Shape and coat

  1. Cut into about 24 pieces and shape into corks, balls, or pears.

  2. Dip each piece in beaten egg.

  3. Roll each piece in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat hog's lard in a pan until hot.

  2. Fry the croquettes until golden.

  3. Drain on a napkin to absorb excess grease.

  4. Serve immediately, garnished with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Roasted veal
Forms the main body of the croquette filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury, earthy flavour to the filling.
Allemande sauce
Binds the meat and mushrooms into a filling that sets firm when chilled.
Eggs
Coat the pieces so the crumbs stick and form a crisp shell.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the filling until firm. A warm or soft filling will not hold its shape when cut and shaped, and it can break open or lose its coating in the hot fat. Chilling lets the sauce set so the pieces keep their form while frying.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, sauce, pepper, bread, egg, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, sauce, pepper, bread, egg, parsley. 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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