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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes made with chicken breast, bacon, rice, Parmesan cheese, and herbs, served with a reduced stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Braise the chicken

  1. Lard the chicken breast with bacon and cover with thin slices of bacon.

  2. Slice the onion.

  3. Slice the carrot.

  4. Place the onion and carrot in a saucepan with sweet herbs and bay leaf.

  5. Lay the chicken on top.

  6. Pour in 1 pint of stock or water.

  7. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  8. Remove the chicken and place it in a dripping tin with some of the liquid.

  9. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes, basting occasionally.

Prepare the mushrooms and sauce

  1. Peel the mushrooms.

  2. Remove the mushroom stalks.

  3. Season the mushrooms with pepper and salt.

  4. Simmer the mushrooms in the chicken broth for 10 minutes.

  5. Arrange the mushrooms around the chicken.

  6. Boil the remaining liquid until reduced to ¾ pint.

  7. Remove the fat from the liquid.

  8. Add glaze to the liquid.

  9. Season the liquid.

  10. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

  11. Serve part of the sauce around the chicken and the rest in a tureen.

Make the rice croquettes

  1. While the chicken is boiling, wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in ½ pint of stock until tender.

  3. Season the rice with salt and pepper as it absorbs the stock.

  4. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

  5. Turn the rice out onto a plate to cool and firm up.

  6. Form the rice into pear shapes.

  7. Brush the rice shapes with beaten egg.

  8. Roll the rice shapes in bread crumbs.

  9. Fry the rice shapes in hot lard until light brown.

  10. Drain the fried croquettes.

  11. Insert a 1‑inch piece of parsley stem into the thin end of each croquette.

  12. Arrange the croquettes around the chicken with the mushrooms.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main protein; slow simmering keeps it moist while the final browning adds colour.
Rice
Absorbs stock as it cooks, then sets when cooled so it can be shaped and fried.
Egg
Brushed on as a binder so bread crumbs adhere and brown evenly when fried.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps bind the cooked rice mixture.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the dish when simmered in the chicken broth.
Bacon
Fat that bastes the chicken during cooking, adding savoury flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Cooling and firming the rice before shaping. Rice must be turned out and cooled until it firms up; shaping it warm makes it soft and sticky, so the croquettes may lose their form or break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, pepper, mushroom, egg, rice, parmesan cheese):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, pepper, mushroom, egg, rice, parmesan cheese. 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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