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Croquettes and Fritters

A fried dish of milk-based croquettes coated in beaten egg and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 and Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 cup of milk to a boil.

  2. Thicken the milk with 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour mixed together.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, seasoning with salt, cayenne, black pepper, and minced parsley.

  4. Let the mixture cool on a large dish, then form into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette first in beaten egg, then roll in grated bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in boiling 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth, spreadable filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a paste that sets as it cools, letting the croquettes hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling and helps keep it smooth.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the filling, while the beaten egg helps bread crumbs stick.
Grated bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before forming. The flour-thickened filling firms as it cools. Shaping it while still warm makes the croquettes soft and likely to slump or break when coated and fried.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, egg, pepper, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, egg, pepper, bread. 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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