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Croquettes of Chicken

A fried ball of seasoned chicken and mushrooms bound with stock and coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Croquettes of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cooked chicken, mushrooms, tongue (or ham), and truffles finely.

  2. Season the mixture with mace and pepper.

  3. Reduce the rich stock by boiling until thick. Stir the reduced stock into the chicken mixture.

  4. Spread the mixture on a dish to a thickness of 1 inch. Cover with buttered paper. Let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, divide the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg. Roll each ball in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until they are light 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten egg coats the balls and helps the bread crumbs adhere and brown.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving them a firm, meaty texture.
Mixed mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy flavor to the filling.
Rich stock
Reduced until thick, it binds the filling and adds concentrated flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, loose filling is too soft to hold its shape, so the balls can split or collapse in the egg and crumbs. Cooling lets the reduced stock set the mixture into a firm, workable paste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, egg, truffle, ham, bread, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, egg, truffle, ham, bread, 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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