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Fish Okoquettes

A fried fish croquette made with fish flakes, flour, butter, egg yolks, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Okoquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the flour and butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add water or milk to make a thick sauce and let it boil.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the cold fish and heat through.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Grease a deep plate with salad oil and pour the mixture onto it.

  6. Let the mixture cool completely.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cork‑shaped rolls, wetting your hands to prevent sticking.

  2. Roll the croquettes in sifted bread crumbs, dip them in beaten egg, then roll them in bread crumbs again.

  3. Fry the croquettes in hot oil until golden brown, using a skimmer to remove them.

  4. Drain the croquettes on brown paper to absorb excess fat.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body and holds the fish together.
Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Fish flakes
Provide the main filling, supplying flavour and the body of the croquettes.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled mixture and add richness so the croquettes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape and will tear or slump. Cooling firms the starch and egg-thickened sauce so the rolls keep their form in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, fish, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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