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Salt Codfish Croquettes

A fried croquette made from salt codfish, butter, onion, flour, milk, spices, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Codfish Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish in cold water for several hours.

  2. Pick the fish into small pieces and place in a saucepan covered with cold water.

  3. When nearly boiling, pour the fish into a colander and rinse with cold water.

  4. Return the fish to the saucepan, cover with cold water, and heat until nearly boiling again.

  5. Drain the fish on a sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and cook the onion for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and stir for 3 minutes.

  3. Stir in the milk, white pepper, and mustard, and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Add the codfish, parsley, beaten egg, and egg yolk, stirring over heat for a few minutes.

  5. Spread the mixture in a tin pan and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small croquettes, dip in beaten egg, roll in bread crumbs, and fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with caper sauce or tomato 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.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main body and flavour of the croquettes after soaking removes excess salt.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion base so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Milk
Combines with the flour to form a thick binding sauce that carries the fish.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture so it sets firm when cooled.
Beaten egg
Creates a coating that helps bread crumbs stick and browns during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. The mixture must cool and firm in the tin pan; if shaped while warm and soft, the croquettes can slump or break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, milk, mustard, parsley, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, milk, mustard, parsley, 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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