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Croquettes of French Peas

Pea croquettes are fried balls made from a creamy mixture of French peas, cream, egg yolk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes of French Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly until smooth.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, celery salt, and onion juice.

Form and cool

  1. Mix in the well-beaten egg yolk and the pureed peas.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a platter and let it cool.

  3. Once cooled, shape into croquettes.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot oil 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and flavour as it melts into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, sliceable base that holds the croquette shape.
Cream
Provides moisture and richness that, with the flour, sets into a thick, creamy binder.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm enough to shape and fry.
Peas
Supply the main flavour and bulk, with their starch helping thicken the mixture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream while stirring constantly. Adding cream slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps. Lumps would make the base hard to shape and fry evenly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper, celery, onion):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper, celery, onion. 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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