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Fish Balls

A fried ball made from mashed potatoes, salt fish, cream, butter, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mash the potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Chop the boiled salt fish very fine and add to the potatoes.

  3. Mix in a few spoonfuls of thick cream, butter, and salt.

  4. Beat the egg and mix it thoroughly into the potato and fish mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Form small balls with floured hands and roll them lightly in flour.

  2. Drop the balls into a kettle of piping hot lard and fry until golden 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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft body that holds the balls together.
Boiled salt fish
Supplies the savory, salty flavour that defines the balls.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the interior tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. Lard must be piping hot before the balls go in. Hot fat sets the outside quickly and browns it, so the balls don't absorb grease or fall apart, and the centre cooks through.

Swap the potato

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

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

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