Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Croquettes

A fried patty made from salmon, butter, cornstarch, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Salmon Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Chop the salmon and mix it with lemon juice, salt, red pepper, and parsley.

Make the base

  1. In a separate bowl, rub the butter and cornstarch together.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the butter and cornstarch mixture and return to heat.

  3. Add the salmon mixture and stir until thickened.

Shape and fry

  1. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into croquettes.

  2. Fry the croquettes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main filling and flavour of the croquettes.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so it sets firm enough to shape.
Butter
Adds richness and helps blend the cornstarch into the base.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a creamy binder.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salmon.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. Cornstarch thickens as it cools and sets, so shaping while the mixture is still hot and soft makes croquettes that slump or break apart in the frying oil.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, pepper, milk, lemon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, pepper, milk, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipesSmoked SalmonSmoked Salmon14 recipes