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Fish Croquettes

A fried fish patty made with butter, flour, milk, cream, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Fish Croquettes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove all skin and bones from the fish and break it into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and gradually stir in the milk until boiling.

  2. Cook the mixture well, then remove from heat and add the fish, cream, and seasonings.

  3. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled, shape into round cakes or rolls.

  2. Brush each cake with beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in hot dripping until golden brown.

  4. Garnish with chopped parsley if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Fish
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter into a binding sauce that holds the fish together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Egg
Coats the shaped cakes so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour and softening the texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture fully before shaping. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape and may split or spread when coated and fried. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce set so the cakes keep their form and do not break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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