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Chicken Croquettes Quenelles

A savory dish of minced chicken, tongue, and truffles formed into croquettes, breaded and fried, served with mashed potatoes and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes Quenelles

6-8 croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Lightly roast the chicken.

  2. Cut off the best meat and set aside.

  3. Save bones, skin, and scraps to make broth.

  4. Mince the chicken meat, cold boiled tongue, and truffles very finely.

  5. Mix the minced ingredients together.

Make the custard base

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in flour.

  3. Moisten with stock.

  4. Add the minced mixture.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme.

  6. Cook for 3-4 minutes.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Stir in beaten eggs mixed with lime juice.

Shape, coat and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on a dish.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Shape into 6-8 egg-shaped croquettes, placing a piece of truffle in the center of each.

  4. Bread crumb the croquettes.

  5. Fry until golden.

  6. Prepare a circle of mashed potatoes on a serving dish.

  7. Arrange croquettes around it.

  8. Place a fried bacon curl between each croquette.

  9. Cut the green ends from a can of asparagus.

  10. Heat gently in chicken broth with a spoonful of cream and a few drops of anchovy vinegar.

  11. Pour into the center of the potato circle.

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. Thyme + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  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

Chicken
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their savoury flavour.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour while it is cooked with the flour.
Flour
Cooked in the melted butter and thickened with stock to bind the filling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden coating that browns during frying.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to the filling and centre of each croquette.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs after removing from heat. Eggs set when heated, so adding them off the heat avoids scrambling and keeps the mixture smooth enough to bind and shape well.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limethe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, truffle, butter, flour, pepper, thyme, egg. 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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