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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made from cooked fish, boiled potatoes, butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, pepper, and sea salt, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pass the boiled potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Break the fish into flakes and remove the bones.

  3. Mix the fish and potatoes with the butter, pepper, salt, and one beaten egg.

  4. Form the mixture into balls or cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the balls in egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Re-shape the cakes after coating.

  3. Fry the cakes in hot fat until golden.

  4. Drain the cakes well and serve on a folded napkin, garnished with fried 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes.
Boiled potatoes
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together and stay moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the cakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a coating that sets and browns when fried.
White breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Re-shape the cakes after coating. Handling the coated cakes gently and firming them up again helps them keep their shape, so the coating does not crack or split open in the hot fat.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, egg, parsley, pepper. 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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