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Fish Cakes

A dish of fish and potato cakes fried in lard and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cover the fish with hot water and let it stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Change the water and boil the fish for 10 minutes.

  3. Pick and chop the fish finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the hot potatoes and mix with the fish.

  2. Add the butter and egg yolks mixed with mustard.

  3. Form the mixture into small round cakes or balls.

Fry

  1. Fry in a mixture of lard and butter until golden brown.

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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the cakes and provides their savoury flavour.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, helping the mixture hold its shape and stay moist.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness to the cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and promotes a golden crust.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the cakes. The mixture is soft and wet, so it needs to be shaped firmly and kept cool enough to hold its form. Frying in hot fat sets the outside quickly into a crust, helping the cakes keep their shape and turn golden brown.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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