Name: Veal or Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients: 3 cups chopped veal or chicken; 1 cup bread crumbs; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon minced parsley; ¼ onion, grated; ½ cup cream; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal or Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine the chopped veal or chicken, bread crumbs, egg yolks, pepper, salt, parsley, grated onion, cream, and lemon juice.
Mix well and form the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

Dip each ball into a beaten egg, then coat with fine bread crumbs.
Fry the croquettes in boiling lard 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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped veal or chicken: Provides the main body and protein that the croquettes are built around.
Bread crumbs: Bind the mixture and absorb moisture so the balls hold their shape.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the mixture together when cooked.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Grated onion: Adds aromatic flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry the croquettes in boiling lard until golden brown. The coating must be sealed in very hot fat. If the lard is not hot enough, the crumbs absorb grease and turn soggy, and the filling heats slowly. Frying until golden brown means the crust has set and browned properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, egg, pepper, parsley, cream, lemon):

Spinachfits better
Shallotfits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, egg, pepper, parsley, cream, lemon. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Veal or Chicken Croquettes