Name: Fish Cakes
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon water; 1 teaspoon oil; bread crumbs; fish mixture; fresh or fried parsley; fat for frying

Why it works: Bread and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Combine water and oil with the egg.
Make bread crumbs and place them on a piece of paper.
Shape the fish mixture into cakes about 1 inch high and 2 inches across.
Brush the cakes with the egg, then toss them in the bread crumbs.
Fry the cakes in very hot fat until golden.
Arrange the cakes in a wheel shape on a dish, garnish with parsley, and serve hot.

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.

Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).