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Croquettes of Fowl

Croquettes of fowl are fried balls made from pounded white fowl or cold veal mixed with a batter of egg, flour, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes of Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Pound the white part of a fowl or some cold veal in a mortar.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg with the flour and milk to make a batter.

  2. Mix the pounded meat with the batter.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the mixture into balls the size and shape of eggs.

  2. Fry the balls until golden brown.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Veal + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

White part of a fowl or cold veal
Provides the main protein that gives the croquettes their body and bite.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it hold its ball shape when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the mixture structure so it holds together.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter, keeping the croquettes tender inside.

The step that matters

Rolling the mixture into balls. If the mixture is too wet or loose, the balls will fall apart in the frying oil. Thorough mixing and a firm, cohesive texture help the croquettes keep their shape and brown evenly.

“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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