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Fish Farce

A fried fish and potato mixture shaped into cork‑shaped pieces, coated in breadcrumbs and served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Farce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a pan, combine the fish, mashed potatoes, egg yolk, salt, pepper, and enough milk to moisten the mixture thoroughly.

  2. Stir the mixture over the heat until well combined, then transfer it to a plate.

  3. Once cooled, shape the mixture into cork-shaped pieces.

Fry and serve

  1. Brush the pieces with egg, coat them in bread crumbs, and fry in hot fat until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

  2. Drain well and serve garnished with crisply 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the mixture and gives the fish flavour.
Potatoes
Adds starch and softness, helping the mixture bind and stay tender.
Egg yolk
Helps bind the mixture and adds richness to hold the shapes together.
Milk
Moistens the mixture so it stays soft and easy to shape.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the coated pieces. Hot fat sets the egg-and-crumb coating quickly and browns it; if the fat is not hot enough, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy while the inside stays cool.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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