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25 Salmon Croquettes

Salmon croquettes are fried cylinders of mashed salmon mixed with milk, butter, flour, eggs, parsley, onion juice, nutmeg, and pepper, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

25 Salmon Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour, then add to the milk and cook until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks, cooking for just a moment longer.

Form the croquettes

  1. In a large bowl, combine the salmon, salt, parsley, onion juice, nutmeg, and pepper.

  2. Mix in the white sauce and let cool.

  3. Once cool, form the mixture into cylinders.

  4. Dip each cylinder in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. 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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 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

Salmon
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that binds the salmon mixture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the white sauce and help bind the mixture as it sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the white sauce along with the flour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool fully before shaping. A warm, soft mixture cannot hold its cylinder shape and may fall apart or stick to your hands. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the croquettes keep their form through dipping and frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, butter, flour, egg, parsley, nutmeg. 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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