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Salt Fish Balls

Salt fish balls are fried balls made from salted fish, potatoes, egg, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Salt Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the fish into small pieces, removing any bones.

  2. Pare the potatoes and cut them into quarters.

Make the mixture

  1. Cook the potatoes and fish together in boiling water until tender.

  2. Drain the water and mash the mixture until very light.

  3. Add the pepper and, when slightly cool, mix in the beaten egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into smoking hot fat.

  2. Fry until brown, cooking only three or four at a time to maintain fat temperature.

  3. Drain on soft paper and serve with a white sauce.

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. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  4. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

  5. Egg + potatotop 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

Salt fish
Provides the main savoury flavour and salty character of the fish balls.
Potatoes
Bulk and starch that mash light and hold the balls together.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in smoking hot fat, a few at a time. Hot fat sets and browns the outside quickly, so the balls do not absorb excess oil. Adding too many at once cools the fat, causing greasy, pale, or falling-apart balls.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, 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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