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Cod-fish Balls

A fried ball made from salt cod, boiled potatoes, butter, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cod-fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the cod-fish.

  2. Chop the cold boiled potatoes and mix with the fish.

Shape and fry

  1. Add melted butter and the beaten egg to the mixture.

  2. Mould the mixture into round balls and lightly dust with flour.

  3. Fry the balls in boiling lard until brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Salt cod-fish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the fish mixture.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that help the mixture hold together when shaped.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the mixture and adding flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the balls in boiling lard until brown. The lard must be hot enough so the outside browns quickly and seals before the balls absorb grease or break apart. Browning also builds flavour through the Maillard reaction.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, 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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