Why it works: Chicken and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,528 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare a chicken mixture and let it cool.
Shape the mixture into croquettes.
Roll each croquette in egg, then in cracker crumbs.
Refrigerate for several hours to firm up.
Fry in deep, hot cottolene until golden brown.
Serve with green peas.
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.
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Chicken + peastop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,528 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Egg + peastop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,065 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg):
- Peanutfits about as well
- Sesamefits about as well
- Peasthe original
- Pecansfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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