Skip to main content
Main

Codfish Balls

A dish of boiled codfish and potatoes mixed with egg, formed into balls and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,978 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish in cold water for several hours.

  2. Cut the fish into pieces and boil them until cooked.

  3. Drain the fish and remove any bones.

Make the mixture

  1. Chop the fish and potatoes together.

  2. Beat the egg and mix it into the fish and potato mixture.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in hot lard 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. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main flavor and savory body of the balls, after soaking removes excess salt.
Potatoes
Add starch and softness, bulking the mixture and helping it hold together.
Egg
Binds the fish and potato mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
Lard
Conducts heat in the frying and gives the outside fat-driven browning and a crisp crust.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt codfish. Salt cod is preserved with a large amount of salt. Soaking in cold water for several hours draws much of this salt out, so the finished balls are not overly salty.

“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.

More codfish balls recipes

Salt 3 See all 201 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes