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Petites Croustades Au Poisson

Small fish croquettes made with semolina, fried and filled with fish liver or carp roe, topped with fish stock sauce and fennel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,344 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Petites Croustades Au Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Make the semolina base

  1. Boil water with salt and olive oil.

  2. Stir in semolina vigorously and dry well.

  3. Transfer to an oiled dish and press down until cool.

  4. Cut into small shapes for croustades.

Coat and fry

  1. Mix a little water with flour to make a batter.

  2. Dip the croustades in the batter and roll in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in olive oil until golden.

  4. Drain and fill with fish liver or carp roe, topped with fish stock sauce and chopped fennel.

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. Olive + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Semolina + fenneltop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Forms the firm base that holds its shape when cooled, cut, and fried.
Olive oil
Adds richness to the dough and carries heat for frying to a golden colour.
Fish liver or carp roe
Provides the rich, savoury filling that the croustades are built around.

The step that matters

Stir in semolina vigorously. Adding semolina to boiling liquid must be stirred constantly so it hydrates evenly without lumps. Drying it well afterward removes surface moisture, helping the base firm up and fry crisp rather than soak up oil.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, semolina, bread, fish, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, semolina, bread, fish, sauce. 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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