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Fish, Croquettes of

Fried fish paste croquettes served with a fish bone gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Fish, Croquettes of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the croquette mixture

  1. In a saucepan, mix flour, butter, and cream over medium heat until combined.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolk and seasoning.

  3. Add the cold fish paste and mix well.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls, then coat each ball in egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot fat until golden brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, boil the fish bones, fins, tails, and onion in water.

  2. Add an anchovy and seasoning to taste.

  3. Serve with the croquettes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold dressed fish
Forms the bulk of the croquettes, giving them their main flavor and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture of the flour-based mixture.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a binding base that holds the fish together.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness so the croquettes hold their shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the base, keeping the croquettes tender.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden crust that browns when the croquettes are fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape. Cooling firms the starch and fat so the balls keep their form through coating and frying.

Swap the onion

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

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

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