Name: Fish Cakes
Ingredients: 4 lb cold fish; 8 oz mashed potatoes; Cold sauce to moisten; Anchovy sauce to taste; Pepper to taste; Salt to taste; Cayenne to taste; Milk for brushing; Brown bread crumbs for coating

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

Mix the cold fish and mashed potatoes well.
Add cold sauce, anchovy sauce, pepper, salt, and cayenne to taste.
Form the mixture into small flat cakes.

Coat and cook

Dip the cakes in beaten egg.
Coat the cakes with bread crumbs.
Fry the cakes until golden brown.
Brush the cakes with a little milk.
Roll the cakes in brown crumbs.
Bake the cakes covered with buttered paper at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish: Forms the bulk and main body of the cakes.
Mashed potatoes: Adds softness and helps bind the mixture together.
Cold sauce: Adds moisture so the mixture holds together without drying out.
Brown bread crumbs: Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying and baking.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, sauce, anchovy, pepper, milk, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Potatothe original
Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, anchovy, pepper, milk, bread. 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.