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Fish Balls

A savory dish of boiled fish mixed with mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the cold fish and mix it with the mashed potatoes, melted butter, and one egg.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then shape the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the second egg well, dip each ball into it, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the balls in boiling ghee or fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Boiled fish
Forms the main body of the balls and supplies the savory flavor.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and bulk, helping the mixture hold together when shaped.
Eggs
Bind the mixture, and the beaten egg helps bread crumbs adhere to the outside.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.
Butter or ghee
Adds richness and carries flavor, and its fat helps the coating turn golden in frying.

The step that matters

Frying the coated balls. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb oil, turn greasy, and can fall apart before the crust sets.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, egg, bread, 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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