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15 Mackerel Balls

A fried dish of shredded mackerel mixed with mashed potatoes, eggs, pepper, and lemon juice, formed into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

15 Mackerel Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight.

  2. In the morning, pour cold water over it and bring to a boil.

  3. Shred the mackerel, discarding skin and bones.

Form and fry

  1. Mix in the cold mashed potatoes, beaten eggs, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls.

  3. Fry the balls in very hot deep lard 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Mackerel
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the meatballs.
Cold mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and moisture, keeping the meatballs tender rather than dense.
Eggs
Bind the shredded fish and potato so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Deep lard
Conducts heat around the balls, browning the outside and crisping the surface.

The step that matters

Fry in very hot lard. If the lard is not very hot, the balls absorb fat and turn greasy before a golden crust forms. Very hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the balls hold their shape and brown evenly.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, lemon. 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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