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Fish Croquettes

Fish croquettes are fried patties made with boiled fish, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Fish Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the cream, then add the onion juice, pepper, salt, egg yolks, fish, and parsley.

  4. Spread the mixture on a dish to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape into croquettes.

  2. Beat one egg with water and dip the croquettes first in bread crumbs, then in the egg, and again in crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with béchamel or hollandaise sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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 and flavour of the croquettes.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a mixture that holds its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft inside.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.
Egg
Helps the bread crumbs adhere to the shaped croquettes.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. A thick, warm base is too soft to hold its shape. Spreading it to cool firms it so the croquettes keep their form and do not break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, butter, cream, egg, flour, parsley. 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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