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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are made from soaked codfish, mashed potatoes, mustard, milk, cayenne pepper, and fried in oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the codfish in a pan of water overnight.

  2. The next morning, separate and chop the fish.

  3. Boil and mash the potatoes, mixing in the Cottolene.

Form and fry

  1. Combine the mustard with the milk, then add it and the fish to the mashed potatoes. Mix everything thoroughly and form into round balls.

  2. Fry the balls in hot Cottolene and serve immediately.

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White codfish
Provides the main body and flavor of the balls once soaked and flaked.
Potatoes
Starch that mashes into a binder, holding the fish together in the formed balls.
Cottolene
Fat that adds richness to the mash and conducts heat for frying the balls.
Milk
Adds moisture that keeps the mashed potato mixture soft and easy to shape.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot Cottolene. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb oil and turn greasy before they set and heat through.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, 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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