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Salmon Croquettes

Salmon croquettes are fried patties made from flaked salmon mixed with white sauce, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and salt, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salmon Croquettes

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmon Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the cold flaked salmon with the thick white sauce, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in bread crumbs.

  3. Dip each croquette in beaten egg.

  4. Dip each croquette again in bread crumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the croquettes in deep hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain the croquettes on paper towels.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Salmon + breadtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together941 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold flaked salmon
Forms the main body and flavour of the croquettes.
Thick white sauce
Binds the salmon and keeps the mixture moist inside.
Egg
Helps the bread crumbs adhere and sets the coating during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown outer crust when fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salmon.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. Warm salmon and white sauce are soft and loose, so the croquettes can crack or fall apart. Cooling firms the starch and fat in the sauce, letting the mixture hold its shape through coating and frying.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, sauce, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, sauce, pepper, bread, 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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