Name: Veal or Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients: 2 cups finely cut meat (veal or chicken); 2 cups freshly cooked rice, hot; 1 teaspoon onion juice; 1 tablespoon sherry; 1 egg; 1 tablespoon butter; a pinch of nutmeg; salt and pepper to taste; stock or cream, as needed

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal or Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Combine the meat, rice, onion juice, sherry, egg, butter, nutmeg, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
Add enough stock or cream to reach a porridge-like consistency.

Shape and chill

Mould the mixture into balls or rolls.
Refrigerate the balls until completely cold.

Coat and fry

Roll each croquette in egg.
Coat the egged croquettes in cracker crumbs.
Fry the croquettes in lard until golden brown, similar to doughnuts.

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.

Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat: Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the croquette filling.
Rice: Adds bulk and helps the mixture bind into a shapeable mass.
Egg: Binds the filling and forms a coating that helps crumbs stick.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender interior and flavour.
Cracker crumbs (in the method): Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Chilling the shaped croquettes until completely cold. Cold, firm croquettes hold their shape during frying. If the mixture is warm or soft, the coating can break and the filling can spill into the fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, sherry, egg, butter, nutmeg, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, sherry, egg, butter, nutmeg, 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.

Rice Fritters84 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

Steamed Rice48 recipes

Meatballs37 recipes

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Veal or Chicken Croquettes