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Macaroni Croquettes

A fried croquette made from boiled macaroni, butter, milk, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Cut the macaroni into slices no thicker than ¼ inch.

  2. Scald the milk in a saucepan, then add the butter and flour mixed until smooth.

  3. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens.

  4. Add the grated cheese and stir until it melts.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the macaroni, salt, white pepper, and paprika. Let cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into cork-shaped croquettes.

  2. Coat each croquette with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown and serve with Cheese Sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes body and a firm bite.
Butter
Enriches the milk and flour base, adding fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a binding sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding savory flavor and helping bind the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce constantly until it boils and thickens. Flour thickens milk only when heated and stirred, and if it sits, it can scorch or form lumps. A smooth, properly thickened base is what holds the croquettes together when shaped and fried.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, cheese, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, cheese, flour. 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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