Name: Croquettes De Saumon
Ingredients: 1 lb cold boiled salmon; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon butter; Juice of ½ lemon; Pinch of cayenne pepper; 1 cup cream; 3 tablespoons flour

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Croquettes De Saumon

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the salmon finely and mix with salt, parsley, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.
Bring the cream to a boil.
Rub the flour and butter together until smooth, then stir into the boiling cream and cook for 3 minutes.
Combine the cream mixture with the salmon and let it cool until firm.
Flour your hands and shape the mixture into rolls.
Dip the rolls in beaten egg, then coat with fine breadcrumbs.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Chicken Salad623 recipes

Salad Dressing491 recipes

Tomato Salad179 recipes

Cold Slaw160 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Croquettes De Saumon