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Chicken Croquettes

A fried chicken mixture formed into small cakes, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the cream or milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Add the butter mixed with flour and let it boil until thick.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool, then mix in salt, pepper, onion or parsley, bread crumbs, and chicken.

  4. Beat the eggs and incorporate them into the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into small rolls or cakes.

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

  3. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a binding sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream with butter so the mixture holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the flavour and texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, helping the croquettes hold together.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and flavour of the croquettes.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the filling and form a crisp, browned outer coating.

The step that matters

Cooling the thickened mixture before shaping. If the base is still warm and loose, the croquettes will not hold their shape and may fall apart during frying. Letting it cool and firm up gives it enough structure to shape and coat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, butter, flour, pepper, bread, chicken. 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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