Name: Chicken and Sweetbread Croquettes
Ingredients: 1 quart cooked chicken, finely chopped; 1 pair sweetbreads, blanched and finely chopped; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 pint milk; ½ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 eggs; 1 pint bread crumbs

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 and Sweetbread Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

In a saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat until boiling.
Mix the butter and flour together, then add to the boiling milk.
Once the mixture cools, stir in the salt, pepper, bread crumbs, chicken, and sweetbreads.

Shape and fry

Beat the eggs and mix them into the chicken mixture.
Form the mixture into desired shapes, roll in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.
Fry 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

Cooked chicken: Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them their main body.
Sweetbreads: Adds a tender, rich texture to the filling.
Milk: Moistens the mixture and, with the flour, forms a thick base that holds the filling together.
Flour: Thickens the boiling milk with butter so the filling can hold its shape.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and provide a coating that helps the crumbs stick and brown.
Bread crumbs: Form a coating that crisps and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A hot, loose mixture is too soft to hold its shape and can fall apart when rolled and coated. Cooling lets the starch in the thickened milk set so the croquettes keep their form in the frying oil.

“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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Chicken and Sweetbread Croquettes