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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are fried, breaded chicken mixtures flavored with butter, flour, broth, eggs, and optional mushrooms or truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Fry the chopped chicken in butter over medium heat.

  2. Add flour to the mixture and stir for 30 seconds.

  3. Pour in the meat broth.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Stir the mixture for 5 minutes.

  6. Remove the mixture from heat and mix in the yolks of 2 eggs.

  7. Return the mixture to heat for 1 minute, stirring continuously.

  8. If desired, add chopped mushrooms or truffles.

  9. Transfer the mixture to a dish and let it cool completely.

  10. Once cool, mix well to ensure even consistency.

Shape and fry

  1. Scoop tablespoon-sized portions onto a board covered with bread crumbs.

  2. Shape each portion as desired.

  3. Dip each portion in beaten egg.

  4. Roll each portion in bread crumbs.

  5. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until golden brown.

  6. Garnish each croquette with a sprig of parsley before serving.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the chicken is fried.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a mixture firm enough to shape and hold together.
Meat broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor, loosening the flour into a smooth binder.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled filling and add richness so the croquettes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling completely before shaping. A warm mixture is soft and sticky, so the portions will slump and break open in the coating and hot oil. Full cooling lets the starch and egg set, giving a firm mixture that keeps its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, meat, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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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