Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Codfish Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Prepare the codfish by washing and soaking it, then mince it finely.
Boil the fish in water for 20 minutes, then drain and cover with fresh boiling water and boil for another 20 minutes.
Drain the fish very dry and let it cool on a dish.
Shape the balls
Mix the cooled fish with an equal amount of mashed potatoes, butter, sweet milk, and the beaten egg to form a stiff batter.
Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls or cakes.
Fry
Drop the balls into boiling lard or drippings and fry until golden brown.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + flourtop 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).
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
- Codfish
- Provides the main savory flavor and the body of the mixture.
- Mashed potatoes
- Adds bulk and binds the fish into a mixture that holds its shape.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture together and helps it set when cooked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and softness to the stiff batter.
The step that matters
Drain the fish very dry. Excess water in the fish dilutes the batter and makes the balls soggy and likely to fall apart in hot fat. Cooling the fish before mixing also keeps the egg from scrambling and the batter stiff enough to shape.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, flour, pepper):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, flour, 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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