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Corn Meal Fish Balls

Fish balls made from cornmeal, egg, butter, and shredded codfish, fried and drained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Meal Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over the codfish and soak it to remove salt if necessary.

Make and fry

  1. Combine the corn meal, egg, butter, and codfish in a bowl.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot fat.

  3. Drain the fish balls on porous paper.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 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

Cold white corn meal
Forms the main body of the balls and sets into a firm crust when fried.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and softens the texture of the batter.
Shredded codfish
Provides the savory fish flavor throughout the balls.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the balls absorb excess oil and turn greasy instead of forming a crisp, browned crust. Hot fat sets the outside quickly so the balls keep their shape.

“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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