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Nellie's Meat Croquettes

Meat croquettes made with finely chopped meat, sweet milk, butter, cornstarch, and coated in cracker crumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. In a bowl, rub together the butter and cornstarch until smooth.

  3. Stir the butter mixture into the hot milk.

  4. Add the chopped meat and mix well.

  5. Roll the mixture into small balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the balls in fine cracker crumbs.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Dip the balls in the beaten eggs, then roll them in crumbs again.

  4. 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
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the savoury flavour of the croquette.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the filling tender and smooth.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the mixture holds together and can be rolled into balls.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the cracker crumbs stick and form a crisp shell.
Sweet milk
Makes the filling moist and, once thickened, gives it a creamy binding base.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling before rolling. The cornstarch must be fully mixed into the hot milk so it gelatinises and sets the mixture. If the filling is too thin or lumpy, the balls will not hold their shape and may split or fall apart in 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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