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Chicken Croquettes

A fried dish of seasoned chicken formed into croquettes.

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, remove the skin, and chop it finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk, nutmeg, parsley, pepper, salt, and cayenne, stirring until the sauce thickens.

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

  4. Set aside to cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Once cool, shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in egg. Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.

  3. 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 filling and gives the croquettes their main flavour.
Butter
Fat that starts the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Milk
Liquid that turns the roux into a creamy sauce that binds the chicken.
Egg
Coating that helps the bread crumbs stick and set during frying.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose sauce cannot hold its shape and may split or slump, so the croquettes can burst or fall apart in the hot fat. Chilling firms the starch-thickened sauce so it holds its form.

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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