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Chicken Croquettes

A fried roll of boiled chicken, sweetbreads, onion, bread, and butter coated in cracker crumbs.

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 ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the chicken and sweetbreads very finely.

  2. Mix in the boiled onion, bread and milk mixture, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Coat and fry

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

  2. Drop the rolls into boiling oil and fry 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
Provide the main meaty filling that gives the croquettes their body.
Boiled chicken
Adds savory flavor and bulk to the filling.
Bread and milk mixture
Adds moisture and softness so the filling holds together without drying out.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving flavor and tenderness of the filling.
Egg yolk
Binds the coating to the rolls and helps the cracker crumbs stick.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browning outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Drop the rolls into boiling oil and fry until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to set the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy and the rolls may fall apart before the crust forms.

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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