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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are small, fried chicken shapes coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken base

  1. In a saucepan, rub the butter and flour into a paste, then stir into boiling cream until smooth and thick.

  2. Remove from heat and add the chicken while hot, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Stir in parsley, onion juice, salt, nutmeg, celery salt, and pepper.

  4. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator until very cold and firm.

  5. Shape the mixture into pear shapes.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then mix in warm water.

  2. Dip each pear first in the egg mixture, then in cracker crumbs, and again in egg.

  3. Fry in boiling oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on buttered toast with green peas.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the croquette and supplies its savory flavor.
Cream
Makes a rich, smooth sauce that binds the chicken together.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a paste that holds the mixture firm when chilled.
Eggs
Egg coating sets during frying to form a crisp, golden shell.
Cracker crumbs
Forms an crisp outer layer that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Chill until very cold and firm. A soft mixture will not hold its shape when dipped and fried. Thorough chilling lets the starch-thickened sauce set so the coating adheres and the croquette keeps its form.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, celery. 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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