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Shad-roe Croquettes

Shad roe croquettes are small, savory cakes made with shad roe, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Shad-roe Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the roe

  1. Wash the shad roes.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with salted boiling water.

  3. Cover the saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Take off the fine skin and mash the shad roes.

Make the binder

  1. Bring the cream to a boil.

  2. Rub the butter and flour together over low heat without browning.

  3. Gradually stir in the boiling cream and boil for 3 minutes until very thick.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks while still boiling.

Mix and shape

  1. Add the mashed shad roes, lemon juice, parsley, nutmeg, cayenne, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  2. Spread on a dish to cool.

  3. Once cool, flour your hands and form the mixture into croquettes.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Shad roes
Provide the main body and rich, delicate flavor of the croquettes.
Cream
Makes the base thick and moist when boiled into the flour mixture.
Butter
Enriches the binder and adds richness along with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a sauce that holds the mixture together.
Egg yolks
Stirred into the hot binder to add richness and help bind the mixture.
Egg whites
Used for dipping so the bread crumbs adhere to the croquettes.

The step that matters

Boil the binder until very thick. The flour must be cooked fully in the boiling cream to thicken the mixture. If it is undercooked, the mixture stays loose and the croquettes will not hold their shape. Cooling fully before shaping also firms it up.

“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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