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Chicken or Beef Croquettes

A fried patty made from minced chicken or beef mixed with gravy or egg, seasoned, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken or Beef Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced meat with cold gravy or an egg.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and optional onion or sage.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Dip each cake in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat lard and butter in a pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken, beef, or veal
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Cold gravy
Adds moisture and binds the minced meat so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture and, beaten, forms a coating that helps crumbs stick.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Lard and butter
Conduct heat for frying and add fat that promotes browning and flavor.

The step that matters

Chill and firm the cakes before frying. Cold, firm cakes hold their shape in hot fat; soft cakes can break apart, and crumbs can fall off, leaving an uneven crust.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, pepper, bread, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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