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Codfish Croquettes

Codfish croquettes are fried balls made from flaked cod, thick cream sauce, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Codfish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the codfish very fine.

  2. Add the thick cream sauce, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice; mix well.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each croquette in crumbs, then dip in beaten egg, and coat again in crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot cottolene or 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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Cold cooked codfish
Forms the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Thick cream sauce
Binds the flaked fish so the mixture holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating so it adheres during frying.
Crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture will not hold its shape and may fall apart when coated and fried. Cooling lets the cream sauce firm up so the croquettes keep their form.

“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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