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Fish Croquettes

Fish croquettes are fried fish cakes made with fish, milk, flour, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fish 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 ↓

Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, cream the flour and butter together.

  2. Heat the milk in a double boiler until boiling, then add the flour and butter mixture.

  3. Stir until smooth and thick, then add salt, pepper, and flaked fish.

  4. Spread the mixture on a platter and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes, then roll in flour, dip in beaten eggs, and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the bulk and flavour of the croquette filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stiff sauce that holds the fish together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the thick sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps it set firm when cooled.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape and may break apart or leak during coating and frying. Cooling lets the starch in the flour-thickened sauce set, making it firm enough to form and coat cleanly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, butter, pepper, egg, 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.

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