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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made with cold fish, mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, and milk, then fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the fish, mashed potatoes, yolk of 1 egg, salt, pepper, and enough milk to moisten thoroughly.

  3. Stir the ingredients over the heat for a few minutes, then transfer to a plate.

  4. Once cool, shape into round, flat cakes.

Coat and cook

  1. Brush with egg, cover with breadcrumbs, and fry in hot fat.

  2. For a large cake, grease a flat tin, shape the mixture like a fish, brush with egg, cover with slightly browned breadcrumbs, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 cakes and provides their flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together and stay moist.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and, brushed on the outside, help the breadcrumbs adhere and brown.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps cook the mixture gently in the saucepan.
Milk
Moistens the mixture so it stays tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture over the heat. Cooking the fish and potato mixture briefly drives off excess moisture so it firms up. If it stays wet, the cakes will be soft and may fall apart when shaped or fried.

Swap the potato

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

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

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

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