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Sardine Balls

Sardine balls are small, breaded, fried spheres made from sardines, bread crumbs, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sardine Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skins, tails, and bones from sardines and mash them finely.

  2. Add bread crumbs, salt, onion juice, and Tabasco or cayenne; mix thoroughly.

  3. Incorporate the egg into the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls.

  2. Roll the balls in additional bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in deep fat 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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

Sardines
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the balls.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body, plus a crisp outer coating.

The step that matters

Incorporate the egg into the mixture. The egg is the binder; mixing it in evenly keeps the balls from crumbling apart during shaping and frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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