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Croquettes of Fowl

A fried croquette made from minced fowl, gravy, spices, and cream, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine minced fowl, gravy, salt, pepper, mace, and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

  3. Thicken with flour or bread crumbs if necessary.

  4. Let the mixture cool until firm.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the cooled mixture into walnut-sized balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg.

  3. Coat the egg-dipped balls with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

  2. Serve on a napkin and garnish with crispy 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Cold fowl
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor so the filling binds without drying out.
Cream
Adds richness and softness to the filling.
Egg
Binds the coating so bread crumbs stick and form a crisp shell.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until firm. Cooling lets the starches and proteins set so the balls hold their shape. A warm, loose mixture will slump and break apart during coating and frying.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, flour, egg, bread, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, flour, egg, bread, 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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