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Veal and Ham Croquettes

A fried croquette made from chopped veal and minced ham mixed with bread crumbs, egg, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix chopped veal with one-third as much minced ham, removing skin and gristle.

  2. Season with pepper and nutmeg.

  3. Add one-fourth as much bread crumbs as meat and wet slightly with gravy or drawn butter.

  4. Incorporate the beaten egg and form into rolls the length of your middle finger and a third as thick.

Coat and chill

  1. Roll in beaten egg, then in cracker dust, and refrigerate for half an hour.

  2. For best results, prepare croquettes several hours in advance without rolling in egg and cracker dust until ready to fry.

Fry

  1. Heat enough dripping in a frying pan to cover the croquettes.

  2. Test the heat with one croquette, then fry a few at a time 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.

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

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives its main meaty flavour and texture.
Cold boiled ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meat mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture so the rolls hold their shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture and forms a coating that helps the cracker dust adhere.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Test the frying heat with one croquette. If the dripping is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and turn soggy; if too hot, the crust browns before the centre heats. A test piece shows whether the fat is right before frying the rest.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, bread, butter, 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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