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Chicken Croquettes

A savory dish of chicken mixed with spices, thickened, folded with eggs, rolled, breaded, and fried.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix butter and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Bring chicken stock and cream or milk to a boil in another pot.

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

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

  5. Remove from heat and gently fold in the beaten eggs.

  6. Allow the mixture to cool in a dish.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, form into small rolls.

  2. Roll each croquette in breadcrumbs, dip in egg, and roll in breadcrumbs again.

  3. Fry in boiling oil 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
Provides the main filling and bulk of the croquettes.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock and cream into a binding base.
Chicken stock and cream or milk
Supply the liquid that cooks with the flour to make a thick, moist filling.
Eggs
Bind the cooled mixture and form a coating that helps the crumbs stick.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm up so it holds its shape. Shaping it while warm makes it soft and sticky, and the rolls may fall apart in the hot oil.

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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