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Fish Croquettes

Fish croquettes are fried fish cakes coated in breadcrumbs, served with a creamy sauce.

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

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Shape and fry

  1. Combine the cooked fish with dressing and enough bread crumbs to form a mixture that can be shaped into croquettes.

  2. Shape the mixture into small rounds, cylinders, or cones.

  3. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in fine bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the croquettes in hot fat until golden brown.

  5. Drain on brown paper to absorb excess fat and garnish with cress.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk and butter in a saucepan for the sauce.

  2. Whisk in the flour mixed with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Stir in salt and pepper.

  5. Add the beaten egg, cooking briefly until thickened but not curdled.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the croquettes, giving each shaped piece its filling and flavour.
Bread crumbs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape, and the fine crumbs coat the outside to brown when fried.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated in the liquid.
Egg
Sets and thickens the sauce as its proteins coagulate, and helps the crumb coating stick.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which the flour thickens.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg to the sauce. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce thickens, but too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy. Cook gently and only until thick.

“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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