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Recipe for Codfish Balls

Codfish Balls are small fried balls made from codfish, potatoes, butter, egg, pepper, and cooking fat.

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 ↓

Recipe for Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the codfish in cold water.

  2. Put the codfish and potatoes in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and cook until the potatoes are done.

  3. Drain the mixture and mash it.

  4. Add a speck of pepper, butter, and the beaten egg to the mashed mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat the cooking fat in a frying pan until smoking hot.

  2. Drop the mixture by tablespoons into the frying pan and fry until brown, turning once.

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 main flavor and body of the balls.
Potatoes
Adds starch that binds the mixture and gives a soft, tender interior.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the mixture in smoking-hot fat. Dropping the mixture into fat that is already smoking hot sears the outside quickly, forming a browned crust that helps the balls hold their shape. Fat that is not hot enough lets the mixture soak up oil and fall apart.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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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