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Veal or Chicken Croquettes-very Excellent

A fried croquette made with cooked chicken or veal, flour, eggs, butter, cream, and coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal or Chicken Croquettes-very Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the chicken or veal until done, then chop it finely.

  2. Season the meat with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the flour, then add the eggs and butter.

  4. Mix in the cream or milk until well combined.

  5. Cook the mixture slowly on low heat for about 30 minutes, or until it thickens.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into croquettes and roll them in cracker crumbs.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Chicken or veal
Provides the main meat and bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the croquettes together.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it can hold a shape.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling tender.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture slowly on low heat. Gentle heat thickens the flour and egg mixture evenly without scorching the milk or curdling the eggs. The filling must be thick and cooled before shaping, or the croquettes will be soft and fall apart when fried.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, egg, butter, flour, pepper, walnut):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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