Why it works: Chicken and nuts work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Nut Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, combine the chopped chicken or veal with the chopped nuts.
Mix in the sauce until well combined.
Shape and fry
Shape the mixture into croquettes.
Fry in hot oil until golden brown.
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.
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Chicken + nutstop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together58 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,513 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Nuts + saucetop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together75 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken or veal
- Provides the main protein and body of the croquette filling.
- Nuts
- Add crunch and a rich, toasty flavour to the filling.
- Sauce
- Binds the filling together so it holds its shape when shaped.
The step that matters
Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the croquettes absorb excess oil and turn greasy, while the outside may brown unevenly or the centre stay cool. Oil at a steady frying temperature browns the surface quickly and keeps the inside tender.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce):
- Sesamefits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Peanutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce. 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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