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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made from cooked fish, mashed potatoes, butter, and breadcrumbs, then fried and garnished with parsley.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and chop it finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the fish and mashed potatoes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in a little egg until the mixture forms a ball.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, form the mixture into cakes.

  2. Brush the cakes with beaten egg, then coat them carefully with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the cakes in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper and serve garnished with 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. 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.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and binding so the cakes hold together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mixture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and gives the coating a golden colour when brushed on.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and hard to form, and it can fall apart. Cooling firms the starches and fat so the cakes keep their shape through breadcrumbing and frying.

Swap the potato

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

  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, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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