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Croquettes De Mouton

A savory dish of mutton, macaroni, and spices formed into croquettes and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes De Mouton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Blend the boiling milk with the flour and butter to make a sauce.

  2. Stir and let it boil until very thick.

  3. Add the curry powder, rubbed smooth.

Mix and cool the filling

  1. Combine the mutton, macaroni, and parsley.

  2. Mix well and season to taste.

  3. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the mixture into croquettes and fry in boiling lard.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Mutton
Provides the main meaty body and savoury flavour of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that helps bind the filling together.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and a soft, starchy texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness in the sauce.
Boiling milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until very thick. Cooking the flour and milk until thick gelatinises the starch, which lets the cooled filling hold its shape. A thin sauce leaves the mixture too wet to roll, and the croquettes may break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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