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Chicken Croquettes

A savory dish of chicken and sweetbread mixed with bread crumbs, eggs, and spices, formed into croquettes and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, saving the broth.

  2. Boil the sweetbreads until tender, saving the broth.

  3. Chop the chicken very fine.

  4. Chop the sweetbreads very fine.

  5. Season the chicken with red and black pepper and salt.

  6. Season the sweetbreads with red and black pepper and salt.

  7. Add 1 teaspoon of grated onion to the mixture of chicken and sweetbreads.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the bread into crumbs until it equals two-thirds the bulk of the meat.

  2. Mix the crumbs and meat, and moisten with warmed broth until it adheres to the spoon.

  3. Heat the cream to boiling and melt the butter in it.

  4. Add the cream and butter to the mixture.

  5. When cool, add the eggs (beating whites and yolks together).

  6. Add curry and parsley, adjusting salt and pepper to taste.

Shape and fry

  1. Chill the mixture for a few hours, then mold into shapes and chill again for two hours.

  2. Dip in egg, roll in crumbs, and boil in lard.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Chicken
Provides the main meaty body and bulk of the croquette filling.
Sweetbreads
Adds a rich, tender texture to the meat filling.
Stale bread
Its crumbs absorb moisture and bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when coated and fried, helping the croquettes hold together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and creamy.

The step that matters

Chill the shaped croquettes before frying. Chilling firms the fat and proteins so the shaped croquettes hold their form and do not burst or leak in hot lard.

Swap the onion

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

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

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