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Croquettes.— No. 2

A fried croquette made from sweetbreads, turkey, cream, bread crumbs, onion, celery, butter, parsley, spices, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes.— No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pour the boiling cream over the bread crumbs and mash until smooth.

  2. Parboil the sweetbreads and chop them very finely.

Shape and coat

  1. Mix the sweetbreads, grated onion, chopped celery, butter, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg together with your hands.

  2. Shape the mixture into pear shapes.

  3. Roll each croquette in beaten egg, then in stale bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Drop the croquettes into boiling lard and fry 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the main soft, finely chopped filling that gives the croquettes their body.
Boiling cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the bread crumbs into a smooth binding paste.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the cream and help bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling.
Beaten egg (in the method)
Forms a coating that helps the bread crumbs stick and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Drop the croquettes into boiling lard and fry until golden brown.. The lard must be hot enough to seal the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease, turn heavy, and may fall apart before the coating sets and browns.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, cream, bread, celery, butter, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, cream, bread, celery, butter, parsley, 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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