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Croquettes of Fish

A fried fish croquette made with shredded boiled fish, butter, flour, milk, anchovy sauce, spices, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Croquettes of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fish mixture

  1. Shred the cold boiled fish into small pieces with a fork and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until light brown, then stir in the flour and cook gently for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens.

  4. Mix in the anchovy sauce, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  5. Add the fish and gently heat until nearly boiling.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool until firm.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cork-like croquettes.

  2. Coat the croquettes in flour, dip each croquette in the beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs to coat.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the croquettes in hot lard at 385°F (196°C) until golden brown.

  2. Serve with fried parsley.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cold boiled fish
Forms the bulk of the croquette, providing the main flavour and body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce base and adds a nutty, browned flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding white sauce that holds the mixture together.
Hot milk
Makes the sauce creamy and, once thickened, firms the mixture so it can be shaped.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere and set during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until firm. The sauce must set fully before shaping; if it is still warm and soft, the croquettes will slump, crack, or fall apart in the hot lard.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, anchovy, sauce, milk, butter, flour. 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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