Name: Codfish Balls
Ingredients: salt fish; potatoes; 1 egg; lard for frying

Why it works: Fish and potato work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 134 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

salt fish
potatoes
1 egg
lard for frying

Directions

Soak the salt fish in cold water.
Cut the fish into pieces and boil them.
Drain the water several times.
Chop the fish and potatoes together.
Beat the egg and mix it with the fish and potato mixture.
Form into balls and fry in hot lard.

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.

Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,782 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

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