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Fish Cakes

A fried cake made from mashed potatoes, codfish, butter, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil potatoes and codfish in water until potatoes are soft.

  2. Drain the water and mash the potatoes and fish together.

  3. Add butter and egg, and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in a pan until golden brown.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that binds the mixture and gives the cakes a soft interior.
Codfish
Supplies the flaky fish flavour and texture that defines the cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and flavour to the mixture.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps hold the mashed mixture together in shaped cakes.

The step that matters

Mash and mix the potatoes, fish, butter and egg. The mixture must be mashed smooth and evenly combined so the cakes hold their shape. Excess water left from boiling can make the mixture soggy and cause the cakes to fall apart while frying.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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