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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of seasoned chicken mixed with mashed potatoes, eggs, and butter, rolled in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the chicken very finely.

  2. Mix the chopped chicken with the gravy or drawn butter.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Beat in the eggs.

  5. Add the mashed potatoes.

  6. Stir the mixture until very hot in a buttered saucepan.

  7. Let the mixture cool quickly.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll the croquettes in fine cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in plenty of hot 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their savoury flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Add body and moisture so the filling holds its shape when shaped and fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together while it is shaped and fried.
Gravy or drawn butter
Adds moisture and richness so the chicken filling stays tender rather than dry.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool quickly. The filling must be cool and firm enough to shape without sticking or falling apart. Cooling it quickly limits the time it sits warm and loose, so the croquettes keep their shape when rolled and fried.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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