Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Cakes

Salmon cakes are pan‑fried patties made from canned salmon, mashed potatoes, parsley, lemon juice, and seasonings, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

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

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Open the tin of salmon and strain off the liquid.

  2. Break the fish into pieces with a fork.

  3. Mash the cold potatoes and mix with the salmon, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

  4. If needed, moisten the mixture with the salmon liquid.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into round cakes on a floured surface.

  2. Dip each cake into the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cakes in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, optionally with boiled potatoes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 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

Potatoes
Mashed starch that binds the salmon and gives the cakes a soft, moist interior.
Salmon
Main protein that provides the body and flavour of the cakes.
Egg
Binds the coated cakes and helps the bread crumbs adhere during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when the cakes are fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot oil until golden brown. Oil that is hot enough sears the crumb coating quickly, so it browns and crisps before the cakes absorb grease and turn soggy inside.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, parsley, lemon, pepper, flour, egg, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, parsley, lemon, pepper, flour, egg, bread. 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 salmon cakes recipes

Steamed 3 See all 8 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipes