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Anchovy and Egg Croquettes

Small croquettes made from anchovy paste, hard-boiled eggs, tongue, and bread crumbs, fried until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,260 recipes. Both carry hexanol, which smells green, fruity. The science ↓

Anchovy and Egg Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Dip the hard-boiled eggs in cold water and remove the shells.

  2. Chop the eggs very finely and place them in a bowl.

  3. Add the anchovy paste and mix well with a wooden spoon.

  4. Chop the tongue finely and add it to the mixture.

  5. Roll the mixture into small balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the raw egg on a plate and dip each ball into it.

  2. Spread the bread crumbs on a sheet of paper and roll each ball in them.

  3. Heat clarified fat until it steams, then make a small hole in each ball with your finger.

  4. Fry the balls until they are a pale brown color, then place them on a paper towel.

Serve

  1. Arrange the croquettes on a hot napkin and top each with a teaspoon of maitre d'hotel butter before serving.

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. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  2. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the soft, bulky body of the croquette filling.
Anchovy paste
Adds salty, savory depth that flavors the filling throughout.
Cold boiled tongue
Adds meaty texture and savory richness to the filling.
Raw egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.
Bread crumbs
Form the outer coating that browns and crisps in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying the balls. Fry in hot fat that is steaming but not smoking, and keep the coating pale brown. Too cool and the croquettes absorb grease and fall apart; too hot and the crumbs burn before the filling warms through.

“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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