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Chicken Croquets

Chicken croquettes are fried, breadcrumb-coated chicken patties shaped into pear shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Chicken Croquets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Shred the cold chicken and mince it with salt and parsley.

  2. Add sweet marjoram, grated lemon peel, pepper, and nutmeg. Mix well.

  3. Pound the mixture to a paste, adding beaten egg yolk gradually to moisten.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into pear shapes, using cloves for decoration.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg yolk, then coat with finely grated breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

  2. Fry some parsley in the leftover butter and use it to garnish the dish.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the main body of the croquettes once minced and pounded into a paste.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and moistens it so the croquettes hold their shape.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the outside and adds rich flavour.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aroma that brightens the savoury chicken filling.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture to a paste, adding egg yolk gradually. Adding the yolk slowly lets the mixture absorb it evenly, so it becomes moist and cohesive without turning sticky or loose, which helps the croquettes keep their shape while frying.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, parsley, marjoram, lemon, pepper, egg, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, marjoram, lemon, pepper, egg, flour. 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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