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Fish Cakes

A savory dish of mashed potatoes mixed with boiled fish, seasoned and fried into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the mashed potatoes and cold boiled fish.

  2. Add a little milk, butter, and the egg if using.

  3. Season with pepper, chopped onions, thyme, and coarse sea salt if needed.

Shape and fry

  1. Sprinkle flour on the mixture and form into small, thick cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in a pan until they are light brown on both sides.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provides the bulk and soft body that holds the cakes together.
Cold boiled fish
Supplies the main flavour and flakes that give the cakes their texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Flour
Dries the surface of the cakes so they brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until light brown on both sides. The cakes are fragile when raw, so they should be formed firmly and turned gently. Frying over moderate heat browns the surface through Maillard reactions while the inside heats through, giving a crisp outside and a cooked centre.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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