Name: Make a Dozen Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients: 2 chicken breasts, minced; ⅓ cup sherry; ½ cup cream; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; a pinch of cayenne pepper; butter for greasing

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Make a Dozen Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine the minced chicken, sherry, cream, pepper, salt, and cayenne, and mix the ingredients well.
Grease a mold with butter and pour the mixture into it.

Cook and serve

Steam the mold for one hour.
Serve cold.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together891 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breasts: Provides the protein that sets into a firm, sliceable mass when cooked.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cooked mixture soft and tender.
Sherry: Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the chicken and cream.

“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.