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Salmon Croquettes

A fried patty made from canned salmon, flour, milk, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salmon Croquettes

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the butter and flour to form a paste.

  3. Add the paste to the heated milk. Stir the mixture.

  4. Cook until the mixture is very thick, about 3 minutes.

Make the salmon mixture

  1. Mash the salmon finely.

  2. Mix in the chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Combine the salmon mixture with the thickened milk mixture.

  4. Let the combined mixture cool.

  5. Form the mixture into croquettes. Use a little flour to prevent sticking.

Coat and serve

  1. Beat the egg. Mix in the boiling water.

  2. Dip each croquette in the egg mixture.

  3. Coat each croquette with bread crumbs.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 flavor of the croquettes.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter into a sauce that binds the salmon.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that holds the mixture together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps make the flour paste smooth.
Egg
Beaten egg acts as a coating that helps bread crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating on the croquettes.

The step that matters

Cook the white sauce until very thick. The sauce must be thick enough to bind the salmon. If it stays thin, the mixture will be too loose to shape and may fall apart when coated and handled.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lemon, flour, milk, butter, pepper, egg. 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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