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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of shredded chicken and mushrooms bound with butter, eggs, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pass the chicken and mushrooms through a meat grinder.

  2. Mix the soaked stale bread with the chicken and mushrooms.

  3. Add the butter and eggs, then mix well.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, celery salt, parsley, onion, and nutmeg.

  5. Pour the mixture onto a platter and let it cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes and roll them in bread crumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a frying 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Stale bread
Soaked in broth, it adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling tender rather than dry.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the filling and gives the croquettes their flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, soft filling with butter and eggs is too loose to hold its shape, so it can split or spill during frying. Chilling firms the fats and proteins so the croquettes keep their form.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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