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Chicken Croquettes

A fried roll of seasoned chicken mixed with cream, stock, and eggs, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour together.

  2. In another pot, bring the chicken stock and cream or milk to a boil.

  3. Add the boiling mixture to the butter and flour, stirring well.

  4. Add the chopped chicken, nutmeg, mace, pepper, and salt, and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs.

  6. Let the mixture cool in a dish.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, form into small rolls and coat in breadcrumbs.

  2. Dip in beaten egg, then coat again in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling lard 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the croquettes their savoury flavour.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock and cream into a binding sauce.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid that is thickened into the filling's sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, softening the filling.
Eggs
Beaten eggs stirred into the hot mixture set as it cools, helping bind the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, soft filling is too loose to roll and will break apart or leak in hot fat. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce and the set egg firm up, so the rolls hold their shape during frying.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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