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Fish Cakes

Fish cakes made with cold fish, mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, milk, salt, and pepper, then fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the fish, potatoes, yolk of 1 egg, salt, pepper, and enough milk to moisten thoroughly.

  3. Stir the mixture over the heat for a few minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, shape into round, flat cakes.

  2. Brush the cakes with egg.

  3. Cover the cakes with breadcrumbs.

Cook

  1. Fry the cakes in hot fat.

  2. Grease a flat tin.

  3. Shape the mixture like a fish.

  4. Brush the cake with egg.

  5. Cover the cake with slightly browned breadcrumbs.

  6. Bake the cake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the cake.
Mashed potatoes
Adds body and moisture so the cakes hold together.
Eggs
The yolk binds the mixture and the egg wash helps breadcrumbs brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mixture.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and falls apart, so cooling lets the starch and egg firm up enough to hold round, flat cakes.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, egg, milk, 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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