Skip to main content
Main

Fish Cake

A fried fish cake made from fish remains, onion, herbs, bread crumbs, mashed potatoes, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of the fish, including the head and fins.

  2. Place the fish bones in a saucepan with the water, salt, pepper, onion, and herbs. Simmer slowly for about 2 hours to make a gravy.

Make and cook the cakes

  1. Chop the fish finely and mix it with the bread crumbs and cold mashed potatoes. Add the chopped parsley and beaten egg, mixing well.

  2. Shape the mixture into cakes and coat with additional bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cakes in a pan until golden brown on both sides.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold potatoes
Adds bulk and moisture, helping the cakes hold together while staying soft inside.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the mixture, and form a crisp golden coating.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. The mixture is soft and moist, so it needs to be shaped firmly and coated well before frying. Cooking over moderate heat lets the outside brown and crisp while the inside heats through without the coating burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, thyme, pepper, bread, potato, 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.

More fish cakes recipes

Cod 8Salmon 5Fried 3 See all 116 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes