Easy Salmon Croquettes - The Recipe Critic (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep salmon croquettes from falling apart? ›

The trick to making salmon croquettes that don't fall apart is making sure they have ingredients to bind them together. In this recipe, egg and flour keep them together. They are still a bit fragile but if you handle with care, they will cook up perfectly.

If you add too much egg, for instance, or the canned fish isn't properly drained, the mixture will be too wet and the cakes will fall apart. Too many breadcrumbs, on the other hand, will make your cakes dry and crumbly.

Back to the milk. Apparently, the proteins present in milk can bind to the fatty acids that have been exposed to air and give salmon its fishy odor or taste and mitigate them to be more neutral.

The binding ingredients may not be in the right proportion. Overmixing can break down the structure. Allowing the salmon mixture to rest before shaping the patties is crucial. Cooking the salmon patties at too high a temperature or for too short a time can result in a mushy interior.

Balance The Binders With The Moisture

Every salmon patty or cake recipe calls for some combination of binding ingredients. These usually include eggs, flour, breadcrumbs, cracker crumbs, ground flaxseed, and so on. Without these binders, the salmon has nothing to stick to, so you can't form patties.

Add an egg white to bind and some bread crumbs, mayo and maybe mustard. Mix it all together, form it into patties and dust them with more bread crumbs, then fry.

It's called albumin. And it lives in your salmon whether it's cooked or not, no matter where it's from, how it's raised, or how much you paid for it. Albumin is a liquid protein that solidifies when the fish is cooked, seeping out as the muscle fibers contract under heat, becoming thick and a bright white.

Go easy on the shaping. When you're making your burgers, try not to manhandle them too much or else you'll end up breaking the meat into smaller pieces than you have to. We recommend simply shaping the beef into a vague burger shape with the least amount handling as possible.

Salmon that's gone bad will often feel almost like it's about to fall apart, or sometimes mushy. Other things to watch for when examining your fish by touch are slimy or sticky residues, both indicators of spoilage.

Sugar + acid is your friend.

There's a reason for it! For one, it's delicious. But from a scientific standpoint, the sugar and acid cut through salmon's fishiness. Glazes add a ton of flavor while taming the salmon.

What does soaking fish in milk do? ›

Before cooking, soak the fish in milk for 20 minutes

In this scenario, the protein in the milk binds with the compounds that cause that fishy odor, in essence extracting if from the fish. What's left behind is sweet-smelling, brighter flesh with clean flavor. (Just make sure you pour that milk down the drain.

How to Control Salmon's Fishiness with a Milk Bath. You can also lessen salmon's strong flavor by soaking it in a milk bath for 20 minutes and then draining it and patting it dry before cooking. The casein in milk binds to the TMA, and when drained away, it takes the culprit that causes fishy odor with it.

If you have a lot of salmon patties to make, you can even forgo the pan altogether and bake them on a sheet tray in the oven. This way, even if your patties are a little too wet or dry you can still get a decent shape; less flipping means less chance of the patties falling apart.

– Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of your burger. When the salmon burger reaches 145 degrees F, it is done. – If you don't have a thermometer, check that your burger is lightly crisp on the outside and that the meat inside is pink and flaky.

If it is too wet, add a little more bread crumbs. Consistency when you put it on a spoon it doesn't slide off. Use a TBS to form little ovals and place in oil and fry until brown; flip over and push down with spatula to flatten it and fry on that side.

Adding flour to the filling also prevents them from falling apart. Our recipe uses three tablespoons, which is just enough to help hold them together.

To ensure the salmon cakes don't fall apart, drain the salmon thoroughly, flake it well, use large eggs, and mix the ingredients thoroughly. About half the olive oil will remain in the skillet; the nutrition info reflects that. But you need all of it to fry the patties properly.

To prevent the croquettes from falling apart or exploding in the oil, ensure that the filling is chilled and stays that way while you shape and bread the croquettes.

Refrigerate The Mix, Use A Sheet Pan

Then you can scoop the cakes and put them on a sheet pan to cool down in the fridge once again. The cooler temperature of the mix will help everything stick together better when the patties are pan-fried, crisping them up nicely.