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Meat Croquettes

Meat croquettes are small fried meat balls coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Meat Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Meat Croquettes

20 croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crumb base

  1. Pour boiling water over the bread crumbs to cover them and boil until smooth.

  2. Break in the yolks of 2 eggs, stirring constantly until the mixture is dry enough to form balls.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Mix the remaining ingredients and add to the bread crumbs.

  2. Break in 2 more eggs and work the mixture until very light.

  3. Shape the mixture into 20 croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the remaining 2 egg whites with 1 whole egg.

  2. Dip each croquette into the beaten egg, then into the bread crumbs.

  3. Drop into boiling lard and fry until light 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the croquettes together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender interior.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Drying the crumb base. The mixture must be stirred until dry enough to form balls before cooling. If it stays wet, the croquettes will be soft and may split or fall apart when fried in hot lard.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, butter, egg, parsley, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, butter, egg, parsley, nutmeg, 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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