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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made from flaked fish and mashed potatoes, seasoned, formed, breaded, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Break the fish into flakes and sieve the potatoes until fine.

  2. Mix fish and potatoes, season with salt, cayenne, and essence of anchovy.

  3. Add butter, milk, and beaten egg to form a stiff paste.

  4. Shape the mixture into cakes about 1.5 inches in diameter and ¾ inch thick.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush cakes with egg.

  2. Coat cakes in bread crumbs, repeating the process twice.

  3. Heat frying fat in a saucepan until it reaches a thin blue smoke.

  4. Carefully place cakes in a frying basket without touching each other.

  5. Fry cakes until golden brown.

  6. Remove cakes and drain on kitchen paper.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

Fish
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their flaky texture.
Potatoes
Bind the fish and add a soft, moist texture to the cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the paste tender and flavourful.
Egg
Binds the paste together and forms a crust that helps the coating adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Crowding the basket drops the fat temperature and makes the cakes steam rather than brown, so they should be placed without touching.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, milk, egg, pepper, anchovy, flour. 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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