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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of minced chicken and ham 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 cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Remove the skin from the chicken and mince it finely with the ham or bacon.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Stir in the flour to form a smooth paste.

  4. Add the veal broth and stir until the mixture boils and thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the cream, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  6. Mix in the minced chicken and ham until well combined.

  7. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the chicken mixture into balls with floured hands.

  2. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  3. Dip the balls in the egg and roll them in bread crumbs to coat.

  4. Arrange the croquettes in a frying basket without touching each other.

Fry and serve

  1. Melt the lard in a deep frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the croquettes in the hot lard until pale yellow.

  3. Drain on paper before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  4. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Butter
Enriches the flour paste, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth paste that holds the filling together.
Veal broth
Adds moisture and savory depth, thickening into a binding sauce with the flour.
Egg
Coats the shaped balls so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crust.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape and can split or slump during coating. Cooling firms the starch-thickened paste so the balls stay intact through the egg and crumb coating and frying.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, flour, veal, cream, 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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