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Somerset Croquettes

A fried cheese croquette made with butter, sour cream, milk, grated and mild cheeses, egg yolks, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Somerset Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Rub in the sour cream, then add the milk while stirring continuously.

  3. Once boiling, add the grated cheese and egg yolks, stirring until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the mild cheese cubes.

  5. Season with salt and cayenne, then spread the mixture on a shallow pan to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into round croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the cheese mixture and help it set firm when cooled.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add flavour and a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a creamy sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Spread the mixture on a shallow pan to cool. The mixture must cool fully until firm before shaping, because a soft, warm mixture will not hold its round shape and may slump or split during frying.

“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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