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Mutton Croquettes

Mutton croquettes are small, breaded, baked meat pieces wrapped in bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Mutton Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces about the size of your finger.

  2. Lard the pieces with ham bacon.

  3. Simmer the meat in stock with sweet herbs until cooked.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the meat and reduce the gravy, then strain it over the pieces.

Coat and bake

  1. Season each piece with fowl seasoning and wrap it in a slice of bacon.

  2. Wash the wrapped pieces with beaten egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from a neck of mutton
Forms the main body of the croquette and gives its rich, savoury flavour.
Ham bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour as it is larded into the meat.
Egg
Beaten egg binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere and brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when baked.

The step that matters

Reduce the gravy before straining. Reducing the stock concentrates its flavour and gelatin, so the gravy seasons the meat well without becoming watery.

“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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