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Clubhouse Fish Balls

A baked dish of mashed potato and salt codfish formed into cones and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clubhouse Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the salt codfish until tender, changing the water once to reduce saltiness.

  2. While the fish is hot, pick it very fine by hand until feathery.

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, combine hot mashed potatoes, milk or cream, butter, salt, pepper, and the picked fish.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix until very light.

  3. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into cones.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cones on a buttered baking pan and brush with egg white.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  3. Serve with tomato, Béchamel, or egg 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and the flaky, feathery texture once picked fine.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and moisture, binding the mixture into a soft, tender interior.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and flavor to the interior.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Mixing until very light. Beating the egg into the hot potato and fish mixture until very light incorporates air and evens out the binder. Overmixing can make the mixture dense and gummy, while undermixing leaves the egg unevenly distributed and the cones prone to falling apart.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper, fish, egg. 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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