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Croquettes of Chicken, Veal or Sweet Bread

Croquettes made from chopped chicken, veal, or sweet bread mixed with butter, flour, spices, and eggs, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Croquettes of Chicken, Veal or Sweet Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Chop the meat, but not too fine, and stir it into the mixture until well combined.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add the yolks of two eggs to bind it.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into oblong croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette into the beaten egg mixed with a little pepper and salt.

  3. Roll in bread crumbs or powdered crackers.

Fry

  1. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the base and carries the flour and seasonings, adding richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a paste that holds the meat together.
Chopped meat
Provides the main filling, giving the croquettes their substance and savory flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Beaten egg
Forms an adhesive coating that helps the bread crumbs stick to each croquette.
Bread crumbs or powdered crackers
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yolks. Adding egg yolks to a hot mixture can scramble them and make the binding uneven. Cooling first lets the yolks blend smoothly and bind the filling so the croquettes keep their shape in hot fat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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