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Fish Cakes

A fried cake made from flaked cod, mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, milk, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the cold boiled cod into a bowl.

  2. Add two-thirds as much hot mashed potatoes as fish.

  3. Mix in a little butter, 2-3 beaten eggs, and enough milk to create a smooth paste.

  4. Season with pepper.

Form and fry

  1. Form the mixture into round cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in sweet beef drippings or clear sweet lard until 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.

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

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

  2. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the main body and flavour of the cakes.
Hot mashed potatoes
Bind with the fish and add softness to the cake interior.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Milk
Loosens the mixture into a smooth paste that is easy to shape.

The step that matters

Making the smooth paste. If the milk and egg are not mixed in evenly, the mixture can stay crumbly or wet in patches, so the cakes may fall apart or cook unevenly. A smooth, well-combined paste holds together during shaping and frying.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, pepper, beef):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, pepper, beef. 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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