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Fish Croquettes

A fried fish paste ball coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with a fish gravy.

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

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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the croquette mixture

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour and cream over medium heat.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk and seasoning.

  3. Add the cold dressed fish and mix until smooth.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls, then coat them in egg and bread crumbs.

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, boil the fish bones, fins, and tails with the onion.

  2. Add the anchovy and season to taste before serving with the croquettes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold dressed fish
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving them their filling texture.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and flavour to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a binding base that holds the mixture together.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, helping the mixture stay tender.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to form into balls and may fall apart or split in the hot fat. Cooling lets the starch and egg firm up so the croquettes hold their shape during frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream, egg, fish, bread, anchovy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, egg, fish, bread, anchovy. 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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