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Fish Balls

Fish balls made from boiled codfish, mashed potatoes, butter, egg, and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove bones and skin from the codfish and chop it finely.

  2. Mix the chopped fish with the mashed potatoes and moisten with drawn butter until soft enough to mold.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into balls and roll them in flour.

  2. Fry the balls quickly in lard or clear dripping until golden brown.

  3. Remove from the fat using a colander to drain excess grease.

Drain and serve

  1. Place on white paper to absorb any remaining grease and serve on a hot dish.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 body and savory flavor of the fish balls.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the fish and adds softness to the interior of the balls.
Drawn butter
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture stays soft enough to mold.
Egg
Helps bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the outside brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the balls quickly in lard or clear dripping until golden brown.. Frying in hot fat quickly sets and browns the outside while the interior heats through. Frying too slowly lets the balls absorb excess fat and turn greasy and loose.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour. 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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