Skip to main content
Main

Fish Croquettes

A fried or boiled dish made from boiled fish, cream, eggs, spices, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fish 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 ↓

Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Pick out the flesh from the boiled fish and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Moisten the fish with a little cream or milk and butter.

  3. Add 1 or more eggs, pepper, salt, and pounded spices to taste.

  4. Mix until you have a very smooth thick paste.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape the mixture into balls or your desired shape, dusting with flour.

  2. To boil, gently drop them into boiling milk, water, or plain water; cook for 1-2 minutes.

  3. To fry, dip in beaten egg, coat with bread crumbs, and repeat after a while.

  4. Fry until warmed through and lightly golden.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried parsley.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Remains of boiled fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Eggs
Bind the fish mixture so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish paste.
Cream or milk
Moistens the fish, keeping the paste soft and smooth.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Mix until a very smooth thick paste. If the paste is too wet or not smooth enough, the croquettes can fall apart or burst during shaping and frying. Thorough mixing binds the fish evenly so the shapes hold together.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes