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Fish Cakes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 fish and potatoes

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and chop it finely.

  2. Mash the potatoes and melt the butter.

Shape the cakes

  1. Mix the fish, mashed potatoes, melted butter, and seasonings together.

  2. Form the mixture into small round cakes on a floured surface.

  3. Brush each cake with beaten egg and cover with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot dripping until nicely browned.

  2. Drain on paper and garnish with 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. 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. 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

Cooked fish
Forms the body of the cakes and gives them their main flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the fish together and keeps the cakes moist and soft inside.
Egg
Coats the cakes so the breadcrumbs stick and help them brown.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish and potato mixture.

The step that matters

Fry in hot dripping until nicely browned. The cakes are already cooked through, so frying is mainly for browning. Hot fat seals the breadcrumb coating quickly, while low heat lets the coating soak up grease and turn pale or soggy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

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