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Croquettes De Poisson

Fish croquettes made with leftover fish, shrimp or lobster, mushrooms, and a creamy sauce, then breaded and fried.

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

Croquettes De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix without browning.

  3. Gradually add hot milk until the mixture is creamy.

  4. Add mace, salt, and white pepper or cayenne; stir gently.

Make the filling

  1. Once boiling, add the fish, shrimp or lobster, and mushrooms; simmer gently for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Mix in the beaten egg yolk and pour onto a flat dish to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cold, divide into portions the size of half an egg and shape into pears.

  2. Roll each piece in fine bread crumbs, then dip in beaten egg, and coat again with bread crumbs.

  3. Garnish with a parsley stalk and fry carefully until golden.

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

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover fish
Provides the main flesh and flavour of the croquette filling.
Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavour through the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a creamy sauce that holds the filling together.
Hot milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the filling a smooth, soft texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the cooled mixture so it can be shaped without falling apart.
Egg
Creates a coating that helps bread crumbs stick and brown when fried.

The step that matters

Coat again with bread crumbs before frying. A thin, even double coat of egg and crumbs seals the soft filling. Gaps let the croquettes leak or break open in hot fat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, shrimp, butter, flour, milk, mace, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, shrimp, butter, flour, milk, mace, mushroom. 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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