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Fish Patties

Fish patties made from boiled fish, herbs, onion, lemon peel, butter, lemon juice, shrimp essence, eggs, wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Fish Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until cooked, then remove the skin and bones.

  2. Mince the fish flesh with chopped herbs, onion, and lemon peel.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, stew the mixture in butter, then add lemon juice and essence of shrimps.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool, then mix in the beaten eggs.

Assemble and cook

  1. Place portions of the mixture into puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is golden.

  2. For fried patties, slice the fish thinly and season before frying.

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 + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  3. Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + shrimptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,437 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

Fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the patties.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the mixture moist as it stews.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the portions hold their shape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and butter.
Puff pastry
Forms a layered shell that puffs and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Raw egg added to a hot mixture can begin to cook and scramble unevenly, which weakens its binding and texture. Cooling first lets the eggs blend smoothly and bind the filling evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, butter, shrimp, 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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