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 ↓
Croquettes De Volaille
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Remove skin, fat, and nerves from the roasted chicken.
Cut the meat into small cubes, about ½ cm wide.
Chop the same amount of truffles.
Mix the chopped truffles with reduced German sauce.
Let the mixture cool on a plate.
Shape and bread
Sprinkle a surface with bread crumbs.
Divide the mixture into equal parts.
Shape the parts into balls or ovals.
Dip each croquette in the beaten egg seasoned with salt, pepper, and oil.
Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.
Reshape each croquette with a knife after breading.
Fry and serve
Fry the croquettes in hot oil for 20 minutes until firm and golden brown.
Drain the croquettes on a towel.
Serve the croquettes garnished with fried parsley and a sprinkle of salt.
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.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,449 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together527 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together756 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cooked chicken meat
- Forms the bulk of the filling, providing the savoury body of the croquette.
- Truffles
- Adds a strong, aromatic flavour to the filling.
- German sauce
- Binds the chicken and truffles together so the filling holds its shape.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
- Egg
- Acts as a binder that helps the breading adhere to the croquette.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to shape and will break open or leak in the hot oil. Cooling lets the sauce set so each croquette keeps its form while frying.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, truffle, sauce, bread, egg, pepper):
- Parsleythe original
- Thymefits about as well
- Garlicfits about as well
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, truffle, sauce, bread, egg, pepper. 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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