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Fish Balls

Fish balls are made from shredded cold cooked fish mixed with mashed potatoes, butter, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the cold cooked fish finely.

  2. Mix the fish with the cold mashed potatoes.

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

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into round balls or thick flat cakes.

  2. Lightly flour the balls or cakes.

  3. Fry in boiling fat or 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked fish
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the balls.
Cold mashed potatoes
Binds the fish together and adds softness and body to the mixture.
Egg
Helps bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fat or lard until brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb more fat, become greasy, and can break apart before the outside sets.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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