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Croquettes De Volaile

A fried dish of seasoned fowl mixture shaped into croquettes and coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Croquettes De Volaile

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove skin and gristle from the fowl or turkey, and pick the meat from the bones.

  2. Mince the meat finely with half the quantity of ham and tongue, then add the bread crumbs.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the chopped shallot until soft.

  4. Stir in the minced mixture, season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then add the béchamel and egg yolks.

  5. Cook over low heat until the mixture sets, then pour it onto a flat dish to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into balls, cutlets, or cork shapes of even size.

  2. Dip each shape in egg and then in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in clarified fat until golden brown, then drain and serve garnished with 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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Béchamel or white sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess so the filling stays soft inside.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour when it softens the shallot before the minced meat goes in.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body, as well as a crisp outer coating.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it sets, then cool it fully before shaping. If the mixture is shaped while still warm or too loose, it will not hold its form and may split or fall apart in the hot fat. Cooling lets the egg and starch firm up so the shapes keep their outline.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, bread, butter, shallot, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, bread, butter, shallot, pepper, sauce. 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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