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Chicken Croquettes

A fried chicken mixture formed into croquettes, coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 filling

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the onion until soft.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 30 seconds.

  3. Add the chopped chicken, broth, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; stir for 2 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

  5. Return to heat for 1 minute, stirring continuously.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a dish and let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in bread or cracker crumbs, then in egg, and again in 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main bulk and savoury flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onion and flour base.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Chicken broth
Adds moisture and flavour, turning the flour into a thick, spreadable base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help bind it once cooked and cooled.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its shape and can split or slump in the hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so the croquettes keep their form and coating.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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