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Chicken Croquettes

A fried ball of seasoned chicken mixture coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Add the cream and season with pepper and salt; let it boil until thick like custard.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in enough chicken to form a thick mixture when cold.

  5. Stir in the egg yolk and let it cool in a dish.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip each ball into the beaten eggs, then roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes their savory flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base and helps form the roux with flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a stable base that holds the chicken together.
Cream
Cooked until thick, it binds the chicken and gives the filling a smooth, custard-like body.
Egg yolk
Enriches the mixture and helps it set firmly as it cools.
Beaten eggs
Act as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to each ball.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture fully before shaping. The base must cool and firm up; if shaped while warm, it stays soft and the balls can fall apart or leak in the frying oil.

“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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