Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Croquetts

A savory dish of minced chicken and cream formed into croquettes, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquetts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine minced fowl and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Heat the mixture until boiling.

  4. Thicken with flour and butter, stirring to form a smooth paste.

  5. Cook for a few minutes.

  6. Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  7. Remove from heat.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into forms about three inches long.

  2. Coat each croquette with egg and cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard using a wire basket 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter 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

Minced fowl
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the mixture into a smooth paste that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps form the smooth thickened paste with flour.
Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture, and beaten egg coats the croquettes to help crumbs stick.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and butter, stirring to form a smooth paste. Flour must be cooked with butter and stirred constantly so starch gelatinizes evenly without lumps. A smooth, well-cooked base sets firmly when cool, so the croquettes hold their shape during frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, flour, butter, 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.

More chicken croquettes recipes

Mock 6Italian 4 See all 418 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes