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Fish Rolls

Fish rolls are small cylinders of finely chopped fish mixed with breadcrumbs, milk, egg whites, and seasonings, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the bread crumbs and milk over medium heat, stirring until smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and add the fish, egg whites, and seasonings. Mix well and let cool.

  3. Form the mixture into small cylinders.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each cylinder with bread crumbs.

  2. Dip each cylinder in egg. Coat again with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 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

Raw fish
Provides the main body and protein that the croquettes are built around.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk to form a soft binder and create a crisp outer coating when fried.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and help the coating adhere and set during frying.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they form a smooth, cohesive binding paste.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is hard to form and may slump or split. Cooling firms the starches and proteins so the cylinders hold their shape through coating and frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, milk, egg, pepper, parsley):

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

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