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Croquettes of Fowls

A savory fowl croquette made with a butter‑flour dough and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Croquettes of Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with cold water and stir into the flour to form a stiff paste.

  3. Knead the paste until smooth, then roll it out twice and let it rest in a cool place for 5‑6 hours.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bones and trimmings of the fowl, garlic, and water; stew to make gravy.

  2. Pound the fowl into a paste and mix in the pounded meat, nutmeg, white pepper, lemon rind, mustard, and salt.

  3. Add enough gravy to moisten the mixture and pound until well combined.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the paste to ⅛ inch thick and cut into 8 equal squares.

  2. Brush each square with cold water, place a portion of the meat mixture in the center, fold over, and press the edges to seal.

  3. Fry the croquettes in boiling lard or clarified dripping until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

  4. Drain on a sieve and serve on a folded napkin, optionally garnished with fried parsley.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flour
Forms the stiff paste that encloses the filling and sets firm when fried.
Butter
Shortens the paste, giving it a tender, crumbly texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and binding to the paste, helping it hold together when rolled.
Fowl
Provides the main meat filling, pounded to a paste for a smooth texture.
Gravy (in the method)
Adds moisture to the meat mixture so it stays soft and cohesive.
Lard or clarified dripping
Conducts heat for frying, browning the outside to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Resting the paste. Resting the rolled dough in a cool place lets the gluten relax, so the paste rolls thin without shrinking or tearing. Skipping the rest makes it tough and hard to seal around the filling.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, garlic, ham, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, garlic, ham, nutmeg, lemon. 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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