Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Croquettes

A fried, breaded mixture of cooked chicken, stock, cream, and seasonings shaped into cone forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens and save the stock, reducing it to about 3 pints.

  2. Once cooled, cut the chicken into small pieces without chopping.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then add the parsley and onion.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until well combined.

  3. Add the chicken stock and cream, stirring until smooth.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  5. Mix in the chicken and let it cool completely.

  6. Mold the mixture into cone shapes and chill until firm.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the croquettes in cracker dust or bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling fat 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk that gives the croquettes their body.
Butter
Enriches the filling with fat and flavour, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the stock and cream into a sauce that holds the croquettes together when chilled.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and smooth rather than dry.
Chicken stock
Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the sauce that binds the filling.
Cracker dust or bread crumbs
Forms a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the shaped croquettes until firm. The filling is a thickened sauce that is soft when warm. Chilling lets the starch set and the fat firm, so the cones keep their shape and do not burst or spread when they meet the hot fat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley, flour, cream, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

More chicken croquettes recipes

Mock 6Italian 4 See all 418 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes