Skip to main content
Main

Fish Cutlets

Fish cutlets are boiled fish mixed with seasonings, coated in a flour‑butter‑milk batter, formed into croquettes, breaded, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the fish until done, then drain and flake it into pieces.

  2. Mix the fish with salt, parsley, and pepper.

  3. In a saucepan, stir flour and butter into hot milk and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Add the yolk of the beaten egg to the mixture, then fold in the fish.

  5. When the mixture is cool, form it into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in the beaten egg, then roll in breadcrumbs.

  2. 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the croquette and gives it its savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a paste that holds the fish together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened milk base.
Egg
Binds the mixture and, as a beaten coating, helps breadcrumbs stick.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before forming. A warm, soft mixture will not hold its shape and may fall apart or stick to your hands. Letting it cool allows the starch-thickened base to firm up so the croquettes keep their form in the hot oil.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, flour, butter, milk, 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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipesFish à la CrèmeFish à la Crème26 recipes