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Fish Cake

A savory fish cake made with fish remains, onions, herbs, breadcrumbs, potatoes, and egg, served with a simmered gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of the fish.

  2. Place the fish bones, head, and fins in a stewpan with the water.

  3. Add salt, pepper, onion, and herbs.

  4. Simmer slowly for about 2 hours to make gravy.

Form the cakes

  1. Chop the fish finely.

  2. Mix the chopped fish with breadcrumbs, cold potatoes, parsley, and seasoning.

  3. Combine the mixture with the egg white to form a cake.

  4. Brush the cake with the egg yolk.

  5. Coat the cake with breadcrumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cake until light brown.

  2. Strain the gravy and pour it over the cake.

  3. Simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Serve hot, garnished with slices of lemon and 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together, while the coating crisps when fried.
Cold potatoes
Their starch helps bind the mixture and keeps the cakes moist.
Egg
The white binds the mixture, and the brushed yolk helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Binding the cake with egg white. The egg white holds the fish, breadcrumbs and potato together. If the mixture is too wet or loose, the cake can break apart during frying, so it should be firm enough to shape before coating.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, thyme, pepper, potato, 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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