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Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes made from minced cooked beef mixed with seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Beef Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mince the cooked beef until you have 1 pint.

  2. Season the beef with salt, pepper, grated onion, and lemon juice.

  3. In a pan, mix butter and flour, then gradually add beef broth.

  4. Stir in the seasoned beef and boil for 2 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg thoroughly.

  6. Pour the mixture onto a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape into croquettes, dip in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes until golden brown and serve with tomato sauce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. 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

Lean cooked beef
Forms the bulk of the croquettes and provides the savory meaty flavor.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the beef broth into a binding base.
Beef broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor, and with the roux helps the mixture hold together.
Beaten egg
Sets when heated, binding the mixture so the croquettes keep their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and hard to shape, and it can crack or fall apart in the coating. Cooling lets the starch and egg firm up so the croquettes hold their form during frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, lemon, butter, flour, egg, bread. 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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