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Croquettes

A fried dish of breaded chicken croquettes flavored with butter, lemon, parsley, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Croquettes

7 or 8 croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread roll in cold water.

  2. Wring the bread roll dry with a cloth.

  3. Cut the chicken into thin strips.

  4. Dice the chicken into small pieces.

Make the croquettes

  1. In a bowl, mix the chicken, bread, cold butter, egg, and parsley by rubbing them together with a spoon.

  2. Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Shape the mixture into 7 or 8 croquettes in pear, round, or flattened shapes.

Coat and fry

  1. In a separate bowl, mix flour and cracker meal in equal parts.

  2. Coat each croquette in milk.

  3. Coat each croquette in the flour mixture.

  4. Coat each croquette again in milk.

  5. Coat each croquette in the flour mixture.

  6. Heat hot lard in a deep saucepan.

  7. Fry the croquettes until well done and browned.

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.

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.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Bread roll
Soaked and wrung dry, it adds soft body that helps bind the mixture.
Cold butter
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender when cooked.
Egg
Helps bind the chicken and bread so the croquettes hold their shape.
Flour
Creates a dry first coating that the milk can cling to.
Cracker meal
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until well done and browned. The soft filling needs enough heat to cook through while the coating browns quickly. Lard that is not hot enough lets the croquettes absorb fat and turn greasy instead of crisp.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, chicken, butter, egg, parsley, lemon, 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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