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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are fried patties made from boiled codfish, potatoes, egg, cream, butter, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil codfish and potatoes in plenty of cold water until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked.

  2. Drain all the water and mash the potatoes with a potato masher.

  3. Add butter, beaten egg, and cream or milk to the mashed potatoes.

  4. Form the mixture into balls or cakes using your hands.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter and lard in a frying pan until hot.

  2. Fry the balls until they are a nice 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the mixture.
Potatoes
Bind the mixture and give the balls a soft, fluffy interior.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the mixture and helps the outside brown.
Lard
Adds fat for frying, helping the balls brown evenly in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until nicely browned. The pan must be hot enough before the balls go in, so the outside browns and crisps quickly rather than absorbing fat and becoming greasy. Fat held at a steady heat also helps the centre heat through.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter. 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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