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Mock Fish Croquettes

A dish of potato-based croquettes flavored with cayenne, mace, and onion, served with Hollandaise or tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Slice three medium sized potatoes.

  2. Boil until tender, but not soft.

  3. Chop very fine an even teaspoonful of onion with three zepherettes or small square crackers.

  4. Add the hot potatoes and chop all together.

  5. Season with a dash of cayenne pepper, a saltspoonful of mace, a little salt and pepper.

Make the sauce and mix

  1. Make a sauce with a large heaping tablespoonful of butter and a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed well together in a saucepan over the fire.

  2. When smooth, add three-quarters of a cup of rich hot milk.

  3. When it boils, add the potato mixture.

  4. Let it get thoroughly hot and stir in a well-beaten egg.

  5. Remove from the fire and turn it out to get cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Form into cylinders.

  2. Dip in egg.

  3. Roll in bread crumbs.

  4. Fry in boiling fat.

  5. Serve with either Hollandaise or tartar sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

330Calories
13 gProtein
9 gFat
53 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Mace + potatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Potatoes
Bulk the croquettes and give a soft, tender interior when mashed into the filling.
Butter (in the method)
Enriches the white sauce, adding richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that binds the filling together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that moistens and binds the potato mixture.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the mixture when stirred in, and later forms a coating that helps crumbs adhere.

The step that matters

Let it get thoroughly hot and stir in a well-beaten egg.. The egg must be cooked by the hot mixture so it sets and binds the filling. If the mixture is not hot enough, the egg stays loose and the croquettes may fall apart when shaped and fried.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, milk, potato. 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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