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Fowl, Croquettes of

Fowl croquettes are small, fried balls made from minced poultry, ham, gravy, and seasonings, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fowl, Croquettes of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the minced fowl with the scraped ham.

  2. Make gravy by boiling the bones and rejected pieces.

  3. Fry the shallots in butter.

  4. Add the gravy to the shallots and season with mace, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  5. Combine flour and butter in a pan.

  6. Add the flour and butter mixture to the gravy.

  7. Once thick, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Let the balls cool.

  3. Roll the balls in egg and breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the coated balls 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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fowl
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving them their meaty filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy with the butter so the mixture holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Enrich and bind the thickened mixture, adding richness and helping it set.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the shallots and the thickening roux.
Egg and bread-crumbs
Form the outer coating that browns when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Let the balls cool. The mixture must be firm before coating; a warm, soft mixture will lose its shape and may burst or fall apart in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, shallot, butter, pepper, sugar, flour, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, shallot, butter, pepper, sugar, flour, egg. 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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