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Croquettes of Fish

A fried fish patty made from minced fish, egg, flour, and milk, served with a fish bone gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 637 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Croquettes of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croquettes

  1. Remove bones from the fish and mince it with seasoning.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced fish with the beaten egg, flour, and milk.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

  4. Brush the outside of each ball with egg and dredge in bread or cracker crumbs.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the croquettes until golden brown.

  2. For the gravy, simmer the fish bones, heads, tails, onion, anchovy, and water together.

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. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the croquette and provides its flavor.
Egg
Binds the minced fish together and, brushed outside, helps crumbs adhere.
All-purpose flour
Helps thicken the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Milk
Adds moisture to keep the mixture tender and soft inside.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the croquettes until golden brown. The coating needs enough hot oil to brown and crisp quickly. Oil that is too cool lets the balls soak up grease and fall apart before the crust sets.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, flour, milk, bread, anchovy):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, flour, milk, bread, anchovy. 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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