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Chicken Croquettes

Chicken croquettes are fried rolls of chicken and cream sauce coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the cream sauce with the chopped chicken, then spread on a plate to cool.

  2. Shape the mixture into rolls.

Coat

  1. Roll each roll in fine bread crumbs.

  2. Dip each roll in the beaten egg.

  3. Roll again in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in very hot fat for one minute until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels and let stand in a warm oven for a few minutes to heat through.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Cream sauce
Binds the chicken together and keeps the filling moist inside.
Egg
Coats the rolls so the bread crumbs stick and form a crust.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot fat. Very hot fat sets and browns the crumb coating quickly, forming a crisp crust before the filling can soften or leak. Fat that is not hot enough lets the coating absorb oil and turn greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, sauce, celery, lemon, onion, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, sauce, celery, lemon, onion, 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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