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Breakfast. Baked Fish Cake.

A baked fish cake made with boiled cod or halibut, mashed potatoes, breadcrumbs, butter, anchovy paste, parsley, onion, egg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Breakfast. Baked Fish Cake.

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the fish cake

  1. Mix the fish, herbs, potatoes, and drawn butter in a bowl.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

Bake

  1. Cover and bake for 15 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod or halibut
Provides the main body and flaky texture of the cake.
Mashed potatoes
Adds starch and bulk, helping the cake hold together and stay moist.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the cake moist as it bakes.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture so it sets into a cohesive cake when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the cake a firmer structure.

The step that matters

Cover and bake for 15 minutes. Covering the dish traps steam so the raw egg sets gently and the fish stays moist. Uncovered heat would dry the surface and can make the cake tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, bread, butter, anchovy, parsley, egg, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, butter, anchovy, parsley, egg, pepper. 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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