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Chicken Croquettes

A fried roll of seasoned chicken mixed with eggs and wine, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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

Make the filling

  1. Chop the chicken meat moderately fine.

  2. Mince the onion and fry it in butter until brown.

  3. Add stock or water, pepper, mace, salt, lemon juice, beaten eggs, and wine (if using).

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into small rolls or pear shapes, inserting a clove for the stem.

  2. Roll in cracker crumbs, dip in beaten egg mixed with water, and roll in crumbs again.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown and drain on paper.

  2. Serve piled on a napkin.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken meat
Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it its main savoury flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the croquette together.
Onion
Browning in butter builds a sweet, savoury aroma into the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while browning the onion.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer coating when fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich filling.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden brown. Very hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly so it crisps instead of soaking up grease. Frying too cool lets the coating absorb fat and the croquette turn soggy or heavy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, butter, pepper, lemon, egg, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, butter, pepper, lemon, egg, wine. 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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