Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are small, fried chicken cakes coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 sauce

  1. Chop the chicken finely.

  2. In a double boiler, heat the milk or cream and chicken stock.

  3. Rub the butter and flour together, then add to the scalded milk.

Mix and shape

  1. Mix all seasonings into the chopped chicken and pour the cream sauce over it. Mix well and spread on a platter to cool.

  2. Once cool, form into cylinder-shaped croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in fine bread crumbs, then dip in the egg mixture, and roll in coarse bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in deep oil, using a frying basket, cooking only two at a time.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 flavor of the croquettes.
Milk
Forms the sauce that binds the chopped chicken together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the chicken together.
Egg
Forms a coating that helps the bread crumbs adhere and brown when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture will not hold its cylinder shape and can break apart in the oil. Chilling lets the starch in the flour-thickened sauce set so the croquettes stay firm during coating and frying.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, butter, flour, onion, nutmeg, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, butter, flour, onion, nutmeg, bread. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes