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Salsify Cakes

Salsify cakes are fried cakes made from mashed salsify, milk, butter, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Salsify Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Scrape the salsify roots and soak them in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Boil the roots until tender, then drain and mash them into a smooth paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix in the milk, melted butter, beaten egg, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into small flat cakes and coat them in flour.

  3. Fry the cakes in a pan with a little butter until golden 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salsify roots
Provide the main body and mild, earthy flavor of the cakes.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the cakes hold their shape.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mash becomes a soft, workable mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cake surfaces brown when fried.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the cakes brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until golden brown. The flour coating and butter brown through the Maillard reaction, which needs steady medium heat. Too little heat leaves the cakes pale and soggy inside, while too much heat scorches the outside before the centre is heated through.

“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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