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Chicken Croquettes

A fried roll of finely chopped chicken mixed with cream sauce, spices, and lemon, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine chicken, salt, celery salt, cayenne pepper, white pepper, onion juice, parsley, and lemon juice.

  2. Prepare a very thick cream sauce.

  3. Mix the beaten egg into the cream sauce.

  4. Combine the sauce with the chicken, using just enough to make it soft enough to handle.

  5. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each roll in fine bread crumbs.

  2. Dip each roll in beaten egg.

  3. Roll each roll again in fine bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the rolls in smoking hot lard for one minute.

  5. Drain the fried rolls.

  6. Serve.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory flavor that forms the body of the croquette.
Cream sauce
Binds the chopped chicken together and keeps the filling moist and soft.
Beaten egg
Adds binding so the breading adheres to the rolls during coating.
Fine bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden crust when the rolls are fried.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that lifts the flavor of the chicken filling.

The step that matters

Use just enough cream sauce to bind the chicken. Too much sauce makes the filling too soft to shape and it may burst or leak in hot fat, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to hold together.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, pepper, onion, parsley, lemon, 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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