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Baked Fish-Cakes

A baked dish of flaked fish mixed with mashed potatoes, egg, and optional sauce, shaped into cakes.

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 ↓

Baked Fish-Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and flake it finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flaked fish with the cold mashed potatoes.

  3. If using, add the leftover sauce, season with salt and pepper, and mix in the beaten egg.

  4. If the mixture is too dry, add a little milk or cream.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into flat cakes and place them in a greased pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main flavour and the flaked body of the cakes.
Mashed potatoes
Bind the fish together and give the cakes a soft, moist interior.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while baking.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture to a mixture that has become too dry.

The step that matters

Adding milk or cream only when the mixture is too dry. Too much liquid makes the cakes soft and hard to shape, while a dry mixture crumbles. Adding small amounts gradually lets you judge the texture before the cakes go into the oven.

Swap the potato

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

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

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