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Fish-cake

A fried fish cake made with boiled fish, potatoes, onions, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish-cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the fish pieces and remove the bones.

  2. Add coarse sea salt, powdered pepper, minced onions, boiled potatoes (mashed), and eggs.

  3. Mix to form a thick paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Spread the mixture on a flat surface to a uniform thickness of ½ inch.

  2. Cut into small squares and fry in ghee until golden brown.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Fish + gheetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pieces of fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cake.
Boiled potatoes
Adds softness and moisture, helping the mixture hold together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape when cut and fried.
Ghee
Fat for frying that browns the outside and adds richness.

The step that matters

Spreading to an even thickness. A uniform layer of ½ inch lets the cakes cook through at the same rate, so the centre is heated while the outside turns golden without burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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