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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made from minced codfish, mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, milk, pepper, and coated in flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove bones from the codfish and mince the meat.

  2. Combine the minced fish with warm mashed potatoes, using two-thirds the amount of fish.

  3. Add a little butter, beaten eggs, and milk to create a smooth paste.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into cakes about 1 inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle the cakes with flour.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter until they are 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and moisture, helping the cakes hold together.
Beaten eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape when fried.
Flour
Dries the surface so the cakes brown well in the butter.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in butter until brown. Frying over steady heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction while the inside heats through. Too little heat leaves them pale and soggy, and too much burns the flour coating before the centre is hot.

Swap the potato

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

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

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