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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are breaded, fried patties made from shredded chicken mixed with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the shredded chicken with salt, pepper, onion, lemon juice, and parsley.

  2. Mix the seasoned chicken into the white sauce.

  3. Spread the mixture on a buttered plate and let it cool completely.

  4. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes.

Bread and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in bread crumbs.

  2. Dip the breaded croquette in beaten egg.

  3. Roll the egg-coated croquette in bread crumbs again.

  4. Heat oil in a frying pan.

  5. Fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  6. Drain the fried croquettes on cheesecloth.

Serve

  1. Serve the croquettes garnished with lemon wedges and parsley.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a sauce that binds the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the white sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the roux that starts the white sauce.
Egg
Coats the croquettes so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden, crisp outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, loose filling will not hold its shape and can burst or slump in the oil. Cooling lets the starch in the thickened sauce set so the croquettes keep their form while frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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