Why it works: Potato and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,978 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Codfish Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare the codfish as you would for serving.
Make and fry the balls
Mix the prepared codfish with the mashed potatoes, using twice as many potatoes as codfish.
Add the egg to the mixture and combine well.
Form the mixture into balls.
Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown.
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.
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Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,978 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Codfish
- Provides the savory, salty flavor that defines the dish.
- Mashed potatoes
- Add bulk and moisture, and bind with the fish to hold the balls together.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
The step that matters
Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the balls absorb grease and turn soggy instead of crisping. Frying in hot oil sets the outside quickly, so the browning forms a crust while the inside heats through.
“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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