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Chicken Croquettes

A fried chicken croquette made with boiled chicken, butter, flour, broth, eggs, mushrooms or truffles, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the chicken.

  2. Chop the meat finely.

  3. Fry the chopped meat in butter for 1 minute.

  4. Add flour and stir for 30 seconds.

  5. Add meat broth, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then stir for 5 minutes.

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

  7. Return to heat for 1 minute while stirring.

  8. Add chopped mushrooms or truffles if desired.

Shape and cool

  1. Cool the mixture.

  2. Once cool, mix well to ensure even consistency.

  3. Scoop tablespoon-sized portions onto a surface covered with bread crumbs.

  4. Shape each portion as desired.

  5. Dip in beaten egg.

  6. Roll in bread crumbs again.

Fry and garnish

  1. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Garnish each croquette with a sprig of 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and protein that the croquette mixture is built around.
Butter
Fat that softens the chopped meat and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Meat broth
Liquid that moistens the filling and carries its savoury flavour.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the filling, helping it hold its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, loose filling stays soft and sticky, so the croquettes may slump or burst in the oil. Chilling firms the starches and proteins so each portion holds its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, meat, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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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