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Nellie's Meat Croquettes

A fried dish of finely chopped meat mixed with milk, butter, and cornstarch, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Nellie's Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Rub the butter and cornstarch together in a bowl, then stir the butter mixture into the hot milk.

  3. Add the chopped meat and mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Coat the balls in cracker crumbs.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, dip the balls in the beaten eggs, then coat the balls again in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot lard 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling tender and flavorful.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the filling holds its shape when rolled.
Milk
Forms the moist base that binds the filling together.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.

The step that matters

Shape and coat the balls before frying. The filling must be firm enough to roll and hold its shape. Coating twice in egg and crumbs builds a sealed crust that keeps the filling from leaking into the hot lard.

“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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