Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Codfish Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine grated codfish and mashed potatoes in a bowl.
Form the mixture into balls the size of an egg.
Roll each ball in flour.
Cook and serve
Heat butter or lard in a pan and brown the balls.
Keep the cooked balls hot until ready to serve.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Grated codfish
- Provides the savory flavor and main protein of the balls.
- Mashed potatoes
- Binds the fish together and gives the balls a soft, moist interior.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown in the pan.
- Butter or lard
- Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that browns the outside.
The step that matters
Browning the balls in the pan. Frying over moderate heat in enough fat browns the flour coating evenly through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor and a crisp crust. Too little fat or too much heat can scorch the outside while the center stays cold.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):
- Shallotfits better
- Leekfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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