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Chicken Croquettes a l'Italienne

Fried chicken croquettes with mushrooms, shallot, and Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes a l'Italienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add broth to the roux, stirring until thickened.

  3. Mix in chicken, mushrooms, shallot, egg yolks, salt, and pepper.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then shape into pear or roll shapes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each piece in bread crumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  3. Drain on paper towels and serve with Italian 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavor to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a roux that binds the filling together.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a creamy binder.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can split or burst in hot oil. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so the croquettes keep their form while frying.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, butter, flour, egg, pepper, bread. 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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