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Fish Fritters

A fried fish and potato mixture formed into small pieces, served with fish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove bones from the cold cooked fish and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Peel and pound the onion with the fish.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Add an equal amount of mashed potatoes and mix well.

  5. Combine the mixture with the beaten egg to form a paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Spread the paste on a board and cut into small pieces about 3 inches across.

  2. Fry the pieces in boiling lard until light brown.

Serve

  1. Place a napkin over a hot dish and pile the fritters on it.

  2. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with fish sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Cold cooked fish
Forms the main body and flavour of the fritters.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and softness, keeping the fritters moist inside.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture into a paste that holds its shape when fried.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury sweetness to the fish mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the pieces in boiling lard until light brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb more fat and turn greasy before the centre is cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, potato, egg, parsley, fish sauce. 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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