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Ham Crooueltes

Ham croquettes are small, fried balls of finely chopped ham seasoned with pepper and mustard, coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Crooueltes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the ham very fine and season with pepper and mustard.

  2. With a little flour in hand, make small balls from the mixture.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the balls in beaten eggs, then roll in bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until light 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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savoury meaty filling that forms the body of each croquette.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the crumbs adhere to the balls during frying.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer layer that browns during frying.
Flour
Dries the surface of the balls so the egg wash and crumbs stick more evenly.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until light brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coated balls absorb fat and turn greasy before the crumbs brown. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, keeping the inside moist and the coating crisp.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, flour, egg, 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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