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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are made from shredded cod, mashed potatoes, butter, cream, and pepper, formed into balls, coated in shredded wheat, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish overnight.

  2. In the morning, place the codfish in a pot with enough cold water to cover it and boil until it falls apart.

  3. Remove the codfish and shred it into very small pieces.

Make the balls

  1. Boil the potatoes, then drain and mash them.

  2. Add the butter, cream, and pepper to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Mix in the shredded codfish.

  4. Form the mixture into balls.

  5. Roll the shredded wheat on a pastry board and coat the balls in it.

  6. Drop the balls into boiling lard and fry 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. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  5. Potato + biscuittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Forms the main body of the balls, giving them savory flavor and a flaky texture.
Potatoes
Mashed starch that binds the fish and gives the balls a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing flavor and a smoother mouthfeel to the mash.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mashed potato soft and easy to shape.
Shredded wheat biscuit
Crushed into a crumb coating that browns during frying to give a crisp exterior.

The step that matters

Drop the balls into boiling lard and fry until brown.. The lard must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb more fat and turn greasy and soggy before the outside crisps.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, wheat, biscuit, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, wheat, biscuit, 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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