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Chicken Croquettes

Deep-fried chicken croquettes coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour to create a roux.

  3. Gradually add the chicken stock and cream or milk, stirring until smooth.

Form the croquettes

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, sauce, eggs, salt, pepper, onion, celery, and lemon juice.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

  3. Roll each ball in cracker crumbs.

  4. Dip the balls in beaten egg.

  5. Roll again in cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot oil 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 bulk and main flavour of the croquettes.
Butter
Fat that forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a sauce that binds the mixture.
Chicken stock
Liquid that makes the sauce savoury and gives it body.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, keeping the filling soft.
Eggs
Bind the chicken mixture and form the egg wash that helps crumbs stick.

The step that matters

Chilling and shaping the mixture before coating. The filling is a thick, soft sauce with chicken. Shaping it into balls and coating it gives a firm, even crust that holds during frying, so the mixture should be firm enough to handle before frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper. 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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