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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made with cooked fish, mashed potatoes, butter, anchovy essence, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 637 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cooked fish coarsely.

  2. Mix the fish with mashed potatoes, essence of anchovy, and melted butter.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne if desired.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool on a plate.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into small flat cakes.

  2. Dip each cake in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with fried parsley.

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. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the mixture and keeps the cakes moist and tender.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs stick and help set the crust.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool before shaping. Warm mixture is soft and sticky, so cakes can fall apart or stick to the hands. Cooling firms the potato and fat so the cakes hold their shape in the frying oil.

Swap the potato

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

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

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