I seldom buy canned salmon, yet when I recently flipped through a hundred-year-old cookbook, a recipe for Salmon Croquettes caught my eye, It brought back warm memories of eating various canned salmon dishes when I was a child. Long story short, I bought a can of salmon the next time I went to the store, and soon was making Salmon Coquettes. The crispy croquettes only took a few minutes to make and were a tasty comfort food.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Salmon Croquettes
1 can salmon (14.75 oz.), flaked
1 tablespoon, butter, melted
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 slice bread, torn into small pieces to make crumbs
1/2 teaspoon anchovy sauce
dashes of salt, pepper, and nutmeg
1 egg, beaten
approximately 3/4 cup cracker crumbs (I put saltine crackers in a Ziplock bag and rolled with a rolling pin to make crumbs.)
lard, shortening, or cooking oil
Put salmon into a mixing bowl. Add melted butter, mashed hard-boiled egg yolks, lemon juice, bread crumbs, anchovy sauce, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Shape into small balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (If the mixture is too juicy to make balls, add additional bread crumbs.)
Put the beaten egg in a bowl. In another bowl put the cracker crumbs. Roll the salmon balls in the egg and then in the cracker crumbs.
Put lard, shortening, or cooking oil in skillet and heat until hot using medium heat. (It should be about 1/2 inch deep.) Add salmon balls. When the bottom of the balls have lightly browned (about 1 1/2 – 2 minutes), gently roll to brown the other sides. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels, then serve.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Perfectly beautiful! My mom and aunt both loved making croquettes, and salmon was one of their favorites. They made them with a thick white sauce. The egg yolks are a great idea!
It sounds like your mother and aunt were real masters at making croquettes.
I think mom loved to make them because you could extend a few scraps of chicken into a meal for all of us!
Croquettes are a great way to use left-overs. I’ve seen a wide variety of croquette recipes in hundred-year-old cookbooks.
My mother made salmon croquettes frequently when we were growing up. I tried a few times over the years and could not get it right–at least, now there is a recipe with instructions should I get motivated to try again.
Croquettes always are a bit tricky to make -and I always worry that they won’t stay together when I fry them. I think that part of the trick is to have the fat or oil hot enough that it is bubbling when the croquettes are added.
Thanks for the tip!
This sounds good! Not sure I’m going to make them as I’m avoiding all fried foods for the present…
Fried foods were much more popular a hundred years ago than what they are now. I think that there was less realization that fried foods may not be very healthy back then.
Some time ago I wrote about learning to use canned mackerel in a variety of ways when we had very little money. I made croquettes from it and they were quite good also. Perhaps fried anything when you are hungry and broke hits the spot.
You may be right – frying many foods does make them tastier even if it may not be the healthiest thing to do. I recently made fried potatoes for the first time in years, and really enjoyed them
I am somewhat compromising by using my air fryer which approximates the taste with much less oil.
My mother cooked salmon croquettes, but I can’t remember what they tasted like. These sound good.
They have a nice flavor.
This is something my mother would occasionally make, and which I recall fondly. She was an awful cook (by her own admission), but her salmon croquettes were good. I hadn’t thought of them for a long time.
It’s nice to hear that this post brought back some good memories.
I’ve never tried these but certainly remember creamed salmon on toast:)
These have a similar flavor to creamed salmon – totally different consistency and texture.
Using mashed egg yolk is a new idea that would be fun to try … fried food is rather limited around this household.☹️ Oh well , it’s a small thing to give up to feel good.🙂
A hundred years ago there seemed to be less awareness that fried foods might not be very healthy.
Like you, I also have fond memories of the dishes my mom used to make with canned salmon.
My sense is that canned salmon was more popular in the past than what it is now.