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Veal or Chicken Croquettes

A fried croquette made from minced veal or chicken mixed with a white sauce, seasoned and breaded.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal or Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Add seasonings to the minced meat.

  2. Make a thick white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in milk until smooth.

  3. Combine the sauce with the seasoned meat mixture.

  4. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool, then shape into pyramids.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in breadcrumbs, then dip in beaten egg, and roll in breadcrumbs again.

  2. Fry in deep fat until golden brown, then drain on paper towels, garnish, and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked veal or chicken
Forms the main body of the croquette filling.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that binds the minced meat.
Milk
Liquid that turns the flour and butter into a smooth, thick sauce.
Egg (in the method)
Beaten egg coating helps breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and firm before shaping. A thick sauce that is still warm stays soft and sticky, so the croquettes can slump or split. Cooling lets the starch set so the shapes hold through breading and frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lemon, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, celery. 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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