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Small Croquettes of Poultry

Small croquettes made from leftover poultry mixed with bechamel sauce, bread crumbs, and eggs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Small Croquettes of Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Finely mince the leftover poultry with a knife.

  2. Reduce the bechamel sauce and season it, then mix in the minced poultry.

  3. Spread the mixture on a dish and let it firm up and cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into round balls or small long shapes.

  2. Roll each croquette in bread crumbs.

  3. Beat the eggs in a plate and brush the croquettes with the egg.

  4. Roll the croquettes in bread crumbs again.

  5. Place them in the larder until dinner time.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a napkin 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  2. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 recipes

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

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover poultry
Provides the main filling and bulk of the croquettes.
Bechamel sauce
Binds the minced poultry together and, once cooled, lets the mixture firm up for shaping.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden crust when fried, protecting the soft filling.
Eggs
Act as a binder that helps the bread crumbs stick to the croquettes.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture firm up and cool. If the filling is still warm or too soft, it will not hold its shape when formed and rolled, and the croquettes may burst or lose their coating in the fryer. Cooling lets the starch in the bechamel set so the mixture can be shaped cleanly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sauce, bread, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sauce, bread, egg. 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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