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Beef or Lamb Croquettes

A fried croquette made with minced beef or lamb, onion, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, and brown stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beef or Lamb Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Add the grated onion, chopped parsley, Worcestershire sauce, and salt to the minced meat.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the beef dripping, flour, remaining salt, pepper, cayenne, and brown stock to make a brown sauce.

  3. Stir in the seasoned meat and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef or lamb
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the brown sauce so the meat mixture holds together when shaped.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the brown sauce, adding moisture and savoury depth.
Beef dripping
Adds fat for richness and helps the croquettes brown when fried.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. The mixture is already cooked, so frying is only for browning the outside. Too little heat leaves the surface pale and greasy, while too much browns the outside before the centre is hot. Keeping the oil at a steady medium heat gives an even golden crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, sauce, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, sauce, flour, 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.

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