Name: Salmon Croquettes with Hollandaise Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pound canned salmon; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; Juice of ½ lemon; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup cream; A little cayenne pepper; 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 ↓

Salmon Croquettes with Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

Chop the salmon finely and mix it with salt, parsley, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil.
In a separate bowl, rub the butter and flour together until smooth, then stir into the boiling cream.
Combine the cream mixture with the salmon mixture and form into shapes.

Coat and fry

Allow the croquettes to cool, then dip them in beaten egg and coat with breadcrumbs.
Let them stand again before frying in hot oil until golden brown.

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

What each ingredient does

Canned salmon: Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their flavour.
Butter and flour: Cooked together into a roux that thickens the cream so the mixture holds its shape.
Cream: Boiled and thickened into a sauce that binds the salmon and keeps the filling moist.
Beaten egg (in the method): Coats the shaped croquettes so breadcrumbs adhere and form a crust.

The step that matters

Let the croquettes cool and stand before frying. Chilling firms the thickened cream and salmon mixture so the shapes hold together. Without this rest, the croquettes may break apart or absorb oil while frying.

“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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Salmon Salad155 recipes

Canned Salmon14 recipes

Smoked Salmon14 recipes

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Salmon Croquettes with Hollandaise Sauce