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Fish Croquettes

Fish croquettes made with cooked fish, white sauce, spices, parsley, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fish Croquettes

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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the cooked fish with white sauce, salt, pepper, cayenne, and chopped parsley.

  2. Form the mixture into croquettes.

  3. Roll the croquettes in egg and breadcrumbs.

Bake

  1. Place them in a well-greased paper bag.

  2. Cool in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

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

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
White sauce
Adds moisture and binds the fish so the croquettes hold their shape.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs stick to the croquettes.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crumb coating that browns and crisps in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a very hot oven. The fish is already cooked, so the oven only needs to heat it through and set the egg coating. A very hot oven browns and crisps the breadcrumb crust quickly, before the inside dries out. Too low a heat gives a soggy, pale coating.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, sauce, pepper, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, pepper, egg, butter. 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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