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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made from macaroni, milk, butter, flour, egg, cheese, and stewed tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the macaroni mixture

  1. Boil the macaroni until rather dry.

  2. In a saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, then add 1 cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Bring to a boil and stir until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in 1 beaten egg, the macaroni, 1 tablespoon of grated cheese, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in egg, then in cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in butter until golden brown.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. For the sauce, run 1 pint of stewed tomatoes through a sieve to remove seeds.

  2. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter, add 1 tablespoon of flour, and mix with the tomato sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them a substantial, starchy body.
Milk
Combined with butter and flour, it makes the thick binding sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding white sauce as it cooks.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture and, as a coating, helps the cracker crumbs adhere and brown.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and richness to the macaroni filling.
Stewed tomatoes
Provides acidity and fruity flavour for the sauce served with the croquettes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A thick, warm starch mixture is soft and sticky; cooling lets the starch firm up so the croquettes hold their shape and do not fall apart in the frying oil.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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