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Croquettes

Shrimp croquettes are oval cakes of mashed shrimp, rice or potato, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the shrimps and mash them smooth in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add butter, rice or mashed potato, and season with salt and pepper. Mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into oval cakes.

  4. Dip each cake in beaten egg, then roll in bread or cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in almost boiling lard for about three minutes until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot on a bed of parsley leaves.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Shrimp + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,055 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main flavour and protein, mashed to bind the croquette mixture.
Cold cooked rice or mashed potato
Bulks out the shrimp and gives the mixture body so the cakes hold their shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs stick and the crust stays intact during frying.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender interior and flavour.

The step that matters

Forming and coating the cakes. The mixture must be well mixed and firm enough to hold an oval shape. Coating in egg and crumbs before frying seals the surface, so the cakes stay intact in hot fat rather than breaking apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, rice, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, rice, pepper, egg, bread. 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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