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Salt Codfish Croquettes

A fried croquette made with salt codfish, butter, onion, flour, milk, spices, egg, parsley, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Codfish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish in cold water for several hours.

  2. Pick the fish into small pieces and place in a saucepan covered with cold water.

  3. When nearly boiling, pour the fish into a colander and rinse with cold water.

  4. Return the fish to the saucepan, cover with cold water, and heat until nearly boiling again.

  5. Remove and drain the fish on a sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and cook the chopped onion for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and stir for 3 minutes.

  3. Stir in the milk, white pepper, and mustard, and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Add the codfish, parsley, beaten egg, and egg yolk, stirring for a few minutes over heat.

  5. Spread the mixture in a tin pan and let it cool.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small croquettes.

  2. Dip the croquettes in beaten egg.

  3. Roll the croquettes in bread crumbs.

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

  5. Serve with caper sauce or tomato 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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 flaky body of the croquettes.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and sets when heated, holding the croquettes in shape.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion base so the mixture can hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the thickened base.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the onion.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The mixture must be cooled so it firms up enough to hold its shape. Shaping it warm makes it soft and sticky, so the croquettes may break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, milk, mustard, parsley, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, milk, mustard, parsley, egg. 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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