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Herring Balls

A dish of boiled herring mixed with mashed potatoes, cream, and butter, formed into balls, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

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 ↓

Herring Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Partly boil the bloaters or herrings.

  2. Remove the skin and take all the meat from the bones.

Shape the balls

  1. Mix the fish with the mashed potatoes, butter, and enough cream to soften the mixture.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

  3. Roll the balls in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in lard or butter until golden 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bloaters or red herrings
Provide the main flavour and the body of the balls.
Mashed potatoes
Bind the fish and add moisture and a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the balls stay moist and browning in the pan.
Cream
Softens the mixture so it holds together while staying moist.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere evenly.

The step that matters

Softening the mixture with cream. Too little cream leaves the mixture dry and crumbly so the balls break apart, while too much makes it soft and hard to shape. Add the cream gradually until the mixture holds together when pressed.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, egg, bread. 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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