Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Codfish Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the codfish
Cut the codfish into pieces and soak in lukewarm water for 1 hour.
Remove bones and skin, then shred the fish.
Place the fish in cold water on the stove and bring to a boil. Change the water and repeat once more.
Make and fry the balls
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them while hot with butter.
Mix equal parts of codfish and mashed potatoes while both are still hot.
Form the mixture into small balls or thick flat cakes.
Fry in hot butter or immerse in boiling lard until golden.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Codfish
- Provides the main savory flavor and the flaky, shredded body of the balls.
- Potatoes
- Add starch and bulk, helping the mixture hold its shape and stay moist.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor, and helps the outside brown when frying.
The step that matters
Mix the codfish and potatoes while both are still hot. Hot potato and fish blend more evenly and bind together, while cold mixtures stiffen and crumble when shaped and fried.
“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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