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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made with cooked fish, potatoes, eggs, butter, milk, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the potatoes.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes through a sieve.

  3. Clean the fish.

  4. In a saucepan, heat the butter and milk.

  5. Stir in the potatoes and fish until warm.

  6. Add the yolk of the egg, pepper, and salt. Mix well.

  7. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

  8. Let it cool.

Shape and coat

  1. On a floured board, shape the mixture into cakes using your hands and a knife.

  2. Beat the whole egg.

  3. Brush the beaten egg over the cakes.

  4. Cover the cakes with bread crumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the cakes in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried cakes on paper.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the cakes a soft, mashable body.
Fish
Supplies the main flavour and protein that gives the cakes their substance.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when cooked.
Whole egg
Forms a coating that helps bread crumbs adhere and brown during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when the cakes are fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and hard to shape. Cooling firms the starches and fats so the cakes hold their form and do not break apart in the hot fat.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, milk, egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, milk, egg, bread, 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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