Skip to main content
Main

Croquettes of Peas

Croquettes of peas are fried, breaded balls made from peas, flour, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Croquettes of Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine flour and butter, rubbing them together until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the heated milk, stirring until thickened.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then mix in the canned peas.

  4. Spread the mixture on a platter to cool until firm.

Shape and fry

  1. Once firm, shape into cylinder-shaped croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in fine bread crumbs, then dip in the beaten egg, and roll again in crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the peas together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to form the thickening roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a binding sauce.
Canned peas
Provide the main flavor and bulk of the croquette filling.
Beaten egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating and helps it stick during frying.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture until firm. The filling must set fully before shaping, because a warm or loose mixture will not hold its cylinder shape and may burst or spread in the hot fat.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

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

More pea croquettes recipes

French 3 See all 3 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes