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Ham and Chicken Croquettes

A fried croquette made from cold fowl and ham, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Ham and Chicken Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine the cold fowl and ham with stock or water.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, lemon, and chopped parsley.

  3. Simmer until the mixture thickens, or thicken with flour or bread crumbs if short on time.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into balls or small sausages.

Coat and fry

  1. Wash the shaped croquettes with egg yolks, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with fried or chopped 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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

Cold fowl
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and firmness to the filling.
Stock or water
Supplies moisture that the mixture thickens as it simmers.
Flour or bread crumbs
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when cooled.
Egg yolks
Gives the shaped croquettes a golden, glossy coating when fried.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust during frying.

The step that matters

Simmer until the mixture thickens. The filling must be thick enough to hold its shape once cooled. If it stays loose, the shaped croquettes can slump or burst in the hot fat. Cooling fully before shaping also helps them keep their form.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, flour, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, flour, egg, 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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