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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are fried, breaded patties made from boiled chicken, milk, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

12 croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smooth in a little of the milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk in a saucepan over boiling water until scalded, then pour in the flour mixture.

  3. Sprinkle the salt and cayenne pepper over the butter and cut it into the milk until it resembles thick cream.

Shape and cool

  1. Mix this thoroughly with the chicken and set aside to cool and stiffen.

  2. Shape the mixture into 12 croquettes, each 3 to 4 inches long, ensuring a smooth surface.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in the beaten egg yolk, then coat with grated bread.

  2. Fry in deep lard 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling, providing the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the thick milk mixture tender and smooth.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stiff sauce that holds the croquettes together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which sets as it cools and stiffens.
Egg yolk
Binds the outer coating so the grated bread adheres before frying.

The step that matters

Cooling and stiffening the mixture. The filling must chill until firm before shaping; if it is still soft, the croquettes lose their shape and can split or leak during frying.

“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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