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Egg Croquettes

Egg croquettes are fried balls of egg and mushroom mixture coated in breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Egg Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Finely chop the hard-boiled eggs or rub them through a wire sieve.

  2. Lightly fry the preserved mushrooms in butter.

  3. Stir in the flour, add the milk, and boil the mixture well.

  4. Add the chopped eggs, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and mix over the heat.

  5. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into balls or corks, coat with raw egg, and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the coated balls in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fried croquettes well and serve garnished with fried parsley.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the bulk and firm, sliceable body that holds the croquette filling together.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stiff paste that sets the filling so it can be shaped.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it gels into a smooth, creamy binding base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the filling tender.
Raw egg
Acts as a binder that sets when fried, helping bread crumbs adhere to the coating.
Preserved mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before shaping. The mixture must be cooled so it firms up enough to hold its shape; if it is still warm and soft, the balls will slump, crack or burst open in hot fat.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mushroom, butter, flour, milk, bread, pepper):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mushroom, butter, flour, milk, bread, 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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