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Ham or Chicken Croquettes

A fried ball made of ground ham or chicken, onion, cracker crumbs, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham or Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the ground meat, ground onion, salt, pepper, cracker crumbs, beaten egg, and cold milk, then mix until well combined and moist.

  2. Shape the mixture into balls.

  3. Roll each ball in additional cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in deep 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked ham or chicken
Provides the main filling and savory meaty flavor.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture, and form a crisp outer coating.
Large egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Cold milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft inside.

The step that matters

Mix until well combined and moist. The mixture needs enough moisture and binding so the balls hold together without cracking. Too dry, they crumble in the fat; too wet, they are hard to shape and may burst while frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, egg, milk. 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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