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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made from flaked fish and mashed potatoes, fried and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove skin and bones from the cold fish and flake it with two forks.

  2. Mash the potatoes and mix them with the flaked fish.

  3. Add the melted margarine and season with salt and pepper. Mix well.

  4. If needed for binding, add a little milk or cold sauce.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Flatten the balls into cakes (about 12 cakes).

  3. Coat the cakes with milk and flour or beaten egg and crumbs.

Fry and serve

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

  2. Drain the cakes on paper.

  3. Serve on a dish garnished with parsley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their flavour.
Cold potatoes
Mashed potatoes bind the flaked fish and help hold the cakes together.
Butter or margarine
Adds fat for richness and moisture in the mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coated cakes absorb more oil and turn greasy before the coating browns. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, keeping the inside moist and the outside crisp.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, potato, pepper, milk, egg. 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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