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Codfish Cakes

Codfish cakes are fried patties made from codfish, mashed potato, butter, egg yolk, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Codfish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Freshen the codfish, remove the skin and bone, and chop or flake it finely.

  2. Mix the codfish with the mashed potato, butter, yolk of the egg, and pepper.

  3. Dust your hands with flour and form the mixture into round balls or flat cakes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat enough fat in a deep frying pan to cover the cakes.

  2. When the fat is hot, drop the cakes into it and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove the cakes with a skimmer and place them on brown paper to drain excess grease.

  4. Serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Codfish
Provides the main flavour and the flaky body of the cakes.
Mashed potato
Binds the fish and adds softness and bulk to the cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Egg yolk
Helps bind the mixture and sets when the cakes are fried.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy instead of golden and crisp.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, flour. 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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