Skip to main content
Main

Fish Cakes

A savory dish of mashed potatoes mixed with flaked fish, seasoned, formed into cakes, coated with breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes.

  3. Flake the fresh fish.

  4. Mix the flaked fish with the mashed potatoes.

  5. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into cakes.

  2. Coat the cakes with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter.

  4. Cook until golden 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 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

Fresh fish
Provides the main filling and flavor of the cakes.
Potatoes
Bind the fish together and give the cakes a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, helping the cakes brown and giving a rich flavor.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. The cakes are fragile and can break if turned too early. Frying until a golden crust forms on each side sets the outside so the cake holds together and develops flavor through browning.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, butter. 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.

More fish cakes recipes

Cod 8Salmon 5Fried 3 See all 116 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes