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Delmonico's Chicken Croquettes

A fried roll of finely chopped chicken, sweetbreads, and bread, coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Delmonico's Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the chicken and sweetbreads very finely.

  2. Mix with the boiled onion, soaked bread, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each roll in egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling 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. Bread + buttertop 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provides the main meaty body and tender texture of the filling.
Boiled bread soaked in milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the filling bind and stay tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and flavorful.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder for the bread crumb coating to adhere to the rolls.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly. If the fat is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and turn soggy before the browning sets.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, milk, butter, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, milk, butter, pepper, 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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