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Fish Cakes From Tinned Salmon

Fish cakes made from tinned salmon, mashed potato, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 From Tinned Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the mashed potato with a little milk until hot and smooth.

  2. Coarsely chop the salmon and mix it with the potato, seasoning to taste.

  3. Stir the mixture over the heat until thoroughly combined, adding more milk if too dry.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into small round cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each cake with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot fat until lightly browned.

  3. Drain well and serve garnished with crisply-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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main flavour and body of the cakes.
Mashed potato
Binds the mixture and adds moisture and soft texture.
Egg
Helps the breadcrumb coating stick and sets to form a crisp crust.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture over the heat. Cooking the potato and salmon mixture until thoroughly combined drives off excess water, so the cakes hold their shape and do not turn soggy or fall apart when coated and fried.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, potato, milk, egg, pepper):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, potato, milk, egg, 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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