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Fish Fritters

Fish fritters made with cooked fish, bread crumbs, mashed potatoes, seasonings, egg, and fried in lard.

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 ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove all bones from the cooked fish and chop it finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the fish, bread crumbs, and cold mashed potatoes.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  4. Add the cream or milk and the beaten egg, mixing well.

  5. Form the mixture into balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fritters in boiling hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a hot platter, garnished with watercress or 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the mixture so the fritters hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds together.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and softness to the mixture, keeping the fritters tender inside.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the fritters in boiling hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters absorb more fat and turn greasy before the outside browns. Hot fat sears the surface quickly, forming a crust that holds the mixture together and gives golden color.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, cream, 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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