Skip to main content
Main

Fish Cakes or Balls Fried

Fried cakes or balls made from mashed potatoes and dressed fish, seasoned with pepper, salt, and optional mace.

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 or Balls Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash a few potatoes with butter or cream.

  2. Remove bones and skin from the dressed fish and mix it with the potatoes.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace if desired.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into cakes or round balls, or place in scallop shells.

  2. Fry them until light brown, or brown in a Dutch oven if using scallops.

Serve

  1. Serve in a napkin or on a plate.

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. Butter + fishtop 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. Potato + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk that hold the mixture together and give it a soft, tender body.
Butter or cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the mash richer and keeping the cakes from drying out.
Dressed fish
Supplies the main flavour and protein, which set lightly when cooked and bind with the potato.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the cakes. The mixture is soft and wet, so it can fall apart. Shape it firmly and chill if needed, then fry over moderate heat so the outside browns before the fish and potato dry out.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, fish, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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