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Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes are fried balls of seasoned beef coated in cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Beef Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Beef Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cold roast or boiled beef finely.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

  3. Add half the quantity of bread crumbs and moisten with a little milk.

Shape and coat

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip each ball into beaten egg, then coat with pulverized cracker dust.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast or boiled beef
Forms the main body of the croquette and gives it its savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and keeps the mixture from drying out.
Beaten egg
Binds the outer coating so the cracker dust adheres during frying.
Butter
Conducts heat and adds fat that browns the outside of the croquettes.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until golden brown. Frying at a steady heat browns the coating through Maillard reactions while the interior warms. Too hot and the coating darkens before the centre heats; too cool and the croquettes absorb fat and turn greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

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