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Meat Croquettes

A fried patty of meat, breadcrumbs, milk, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped meat, bread crumbs, scalded milk, egg, melted butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Mix until well combined.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small patties.

  2. Coat each patty in flour.

  3. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat and fry the patties until golden brown on both sides.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

Chopped meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the patties hold their shape.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft inside.
Egg
Binds the mixture together as it sets with heat.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the frying butter.

The step that matters

Frying the patties. Frying over medium heat lets the outside brown through the Maillard reaction while the centre heats through. Too high a heat browns the flour coating before the inside sets, and too low a heat leaves the patties greasy and pale.

“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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