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Cod Fish Cakbs

A fried cake made from mashed salt cod and potatoes, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cod Fish Cakbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Boil the salt cod until tender, then remove all bones.

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the cod and mix it with an equal amount of mashed potatoes.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Add enough beaten egg to form a paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into thin cakes and dust with flour.

  2. Fry the cakes in a pan until they are light 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Provides the main flavour and the flaked body of the cakes.
Mashed potatoes
Adds starch and moisture, giving the cakes a soft, tender interior.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when fried.
Flour
Dries the surface of the cakes so they brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until light brown. Cooking over moderate heat lets the outside brown and crisp while the inside heats through. Too high a heat browns the surface before the centre is hot, and too low a heat leaves the cakes greasy and pale.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, 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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