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Codfish Croquettes

Codfish croquettes are fried balls made from minced cod, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Codfish Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the codfish overnight, then simmer in cold water until cooked.

  2. Mince the fish until very fine and light.

Make the binder

  1. Boil the milk or cream, then rub the butter and flour into a cream and add to the boiling milk.

  2. Once thickened, remove from heat and mix in the fish, cayenne pepper, and onion juice.

  3. Beat the mixture until very light and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes, roll in egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown and serve with shrimp sauce or brown sauce seasoned with Worcestershire sauce.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the croquette filling.
Milk or cream
Forms a thickened base that binds the fish into a soft, creamy mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the thickened base.
Flour
Thickens the boiled milk or cream so the mixture holds its shape.
Egg
Coats the croquettes so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture before shaping. The thickened mixture is soft and sticky when warm. Chilling firms the starch and fat so the croquettes hold their shape through coating and frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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