Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes made with boiled chicken, butter, flour, broth, egg yolks, optional mushrooms, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the chopped chicken for a few minutes.

  2. Add the flour and stir for 30 seconds.

  3. Pour in the meat broth, then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg; stir for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

  5. Return to heat for 1 minute, stirring continuously.

  6. If desired, add the chopped mushrooms.

  7. Transfer the mixture to a dish and let it cool completely.

  8. Once cool, mix well to combine any drier parts.

Shape and fry

  1. Scoop tablespoon-sized portions onto a floured surface.

  2. Shape each portion into a desired form, then dip in beaten egg and roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Garnish each croquette with a sprig of 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the croquette filling.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the chicken is fried.
Flour
Thickens the meat broth so the filling holds its shape.
Meat broth
Adds moisture and savoury depth, helping bind the filling into a paste.
Egg yolks
Set during gentle heating to bind and enrich the filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool completely before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to hold its form and can burst or slump in hot fat. Cooling lets the starch and egg set so the portions keep their shape and the coating stays intact.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, meat, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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.

More chicken croquettes recipes

Mock 6Italian 4 See all 418 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes