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Fish Croquettes

Fish croquettes made with flaked fish, milk, flour, butter, and breadcrumbs, then fried and garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Fish Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. In a bowl, cream together the flour and butter.

  2. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  3. Add the flour and butter mixture to the boiling milk, stirring until smooth and thick.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then fold in the flaked fish.

  5. Spread the mixture on a platter and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in flour, then dip in the beaten egg, and coat with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Arrange on a hot dish and garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a stiff base that holds the croquettes together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, softening its flavor and texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce that binds the fish.
Cooked fish
Provides the main flavor and bulk of the croquette filling.
Egg
Binds the outer coating so the breadcrumbs adhere during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch in the thickened sauce set so the croquettes keep their form through coating and frying.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, pepper, fish, egg, lemon. 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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