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Lentil Croquettes

A fried croquette made from lentils, lima beans, vegetables, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lentil Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Soak lentils and lima beans overnight.

  2. Drain and add to a pot with water, onion, celery, carrot, and parsley.

  3. Cook until soft, then remove seasonings and sieve the mixture.

Make the binder

  1. Mix in bread crumbs, beaten egg, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Melt butter, stir in flour, and gradually add cream; bring to a boil.

  3. Combine the cream mixture with the lentil mixture and cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into croquettes, dip in crumbs, then egg, and again in crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown and drain before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried lentils
Provide the main body and protein base that holds the croquette together once cooked and sieved.
Dried lima beans
Add starchy bulk and a softer, creamier texture to the lentil mixture.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add structure, and form the crisp outer coating after dipping.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps the coating adhere during shaping and dipping.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and forms the base of the flour-thickened cream sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a sauce that helps bind the croquette mixture.

The step that matters

Sieve the cooked lentil mixture completely smooth before adding the binder. Any remaining lumps or large pieces make the mixture uneven and hard to shape, and can cause the croquettes to crack or fall apart when fried.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, onion, celery, carrot, parsley, bread, egg):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, celery, carrot, parsley, bread, 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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