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Salt Fish Balls

A ball made from salted fish, potatoes, egg, and pepper, fried until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the fish into small pieces, removing bones.

  2. Pare the potatoes and cut them into quarters.

Make the mixture

  1. Cook the potatoes and fish together in boiling water until tender.

  2. Drain the water and mash the mixture until very light.

  3. Add pepper and the beaten egg when slightly cool.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls into smoking hot fat and fry until brown.

  2. Cook only three or four at a time to maintain fat temperature.

  3. Drain on soft paper and serve with a white sauce.

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

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

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

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

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the fish balls.
Potatoes
Adds starch and body so the mixture mashes light and holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape while frying.

The step that matters

Cook only three or four at a time. Adding too many spoonfuls at once cools the frying fat, so the balls absorb oil and brown unevenly instead of crisping quickly.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, 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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