Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Croquettes De Saumon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Chop the salmon finely and mix with lemon juice, salt, parsley, and cayenne pepper.
Bring the cream to a boil.
In a separate bowl, rub the flour and butter together until smooth, then stir into the boiling cream and cook for 3 minutes.
Combine the cream mixture with the salmon and let it cool until firm.
Shape and coat
Flour your hands and shape the mixture into rolls.
Dip each roll in beaten egg, then coat with fine breadcrumbs.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Fry and serve
Fry in boiling lard until golden brown, then drain and serve on a napkin garnished with parsley.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Salmon
- Forms the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream into a paste that binds the salmon mixture.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, helping the mixture stay soft inside.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the flour paste, smoothing the sauce.
- Eggs (in the method)
- Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres during frying.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool until firm before shaping. Shaping a warm, soft mixture makes it sticky and fragile. Cooling lets the starch in the flour paste set, so the rolls hold their shape and do not break apart in the hot fat.
“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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