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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of chicken mixed with a seasoned sauce, shaped into croquettes and coated with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 chicken.

  2. Remove the skin.

  3. Chop the chicken finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk.

  4. Add the nutmeg, parsley, pepper, salt and cayenne.

  5. Stir until the sauce thickens.

  6. Add the chopped chicken to the sauce and mix well.

  7. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, mold the mixture into croquette shapes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg.

  3. Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the croquettes in hot 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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  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
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its main flavour and body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while the flour is cooked into it.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce stiff enough to hold the croquette shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats with the flour.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere to the croquette.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, soft sauce cannot hold its shape and will slump or split when handled. Chilling firms the starch-thickened sauce so the croquettes keep their form through coating and frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, milk, nutmeg, pepper, egg. 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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