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Veal Croquettes

A fried croquette made with veal, milk, butter, flour, and seasoned with salt and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add flour and whisk to combine.

  3. Gradually whisk in milk until the sauce thickens.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and red pepper.

  5. Mix the sauce with the chopped veal.

  6. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in cracker crumbs.

  3. Dip the crumb-coated croquettes in beaten egg.

  4. Roll the egg-dipped croquettes again in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot fat 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the croquettes, held together by the sauce.
Flour
Its starch thickens the milk into a sauce that binds the chopped veal.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the sauce base.
Egg
Beaten egg helps the cracker crumbs cling for a second coating.
Cracker crumbs
Form a dry coating that fries to a crisp golden crust.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm mixture is soft and will not hold its shape. Cooling lets the thickened starch firm up the sauce so the croquettes keep their form when coated and fried.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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