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Chicken Croquettes

A fried finger roll of chicken, mushrooms, and onions coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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. In a saucepan, melt butter and sauté onion until it begins to color.

  2. Stir in flour, mushroom liquid, and chicken broth.

  3. Add chopped chicken, mushrooms, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; stir until boiling.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks without beating.

  5. Pour mixture onto a dish, add a few drops of salad oil to prevent hardening.

Shape and fry

  1. Form into finger rolls, dip in egg, then coat with cracker 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 the onion flavor as it sautés.
Flour
Thickens the broth and mushroom liquid into a binding paste.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set firm once cooled and fried.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in egg yolks without beating. Adding yolks off the heat, without vigorous beating, keeps them from scrambling or curdling while still enriching the mixture. The filling must then be chilled enough to firm up so the rolls hold their shape when fried.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, butter, flour, egg, sherry, 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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