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Codfish Cakes

A fried cake made from boiled codfish, mashed potatoes, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish.

  2. Boil the codfish.

  3. Pound and pick the codfish fine.

Make the codfish mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan set in boiling water.

  2. Add the codfish to the melted butter.

  3. Stir well.

  4. Stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Remove from heat when scalding hot.

Form and fry the cakes

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes with butter.

  2. Combine with the codfish mixture in a large bowl.

  3. Flour your hands.

  4. Shape the mixture into balls.

  5. Flatten into cakes.

  6. Fry the cakes in butter 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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main flavor and the flaked body of the cakes.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown when fried.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness so the cakes hold together.
Mashed potatoes
Add bulk and softness, helping the cakes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Remove from heat when scalding hot.. Overheating the egg yolks can scramble them, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, binding mixture.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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