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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of chicken mixed with milk, egg, and spices, coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the chopped chicken, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a pot and heat until warm.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and mix well, but do not cook further.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool on a platter.

Shape and fry

  1. Take a small amount of the mixture, roll it in flour, dip it in beaten egg, and coat it with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the coated pieces in boiling lard until golden brown, cooking no more than three 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving the croquettes their savory body.
Milk
Adds moisture so the chicken mixture stays soft and binds together.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when rolled and fried.
Flour
Gives the coated surface a dry base so the egg and crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Do not overcook the mixture before cooling. Heating the egg-enriched mixture further would set it firm and dry, making it hard to shape and less tender once fried. Cooling it fully also firms it so the pieces hold their form in hot lard.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, pepper, egg, flour, bread):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, pepper, egg, flour, 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.

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