Skip to main content
Main

Fish Balls

Fish balls are mashed potato and codfish mixture shaped into balls, coated in flour, egg, breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and codfish

  1. Boil the potatoes until nearly done.

  2. Pour off most of the water.

  3. Add the rinsed codfish to the potatoes.

  4. Finish cooking the mixture.

  5. Drain the potatoes.

  6. Shake the kettle over the fire.

Form and coat the balls

  1. Mash the potatoes until light.

  2. Mix in the butter, egg, and salt if needed.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

  4. Coat the balls in flour.

  5. Dip the balls in beaten egg mixed with a little water.

  6. Coat the balls in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in deep oil until light 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. 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  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

Potatoes
Form the soft bulk that holds the fish balls together.
Codfish
Adds the salty, savoury fish flavour to the mashed base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist interior.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the balls keep their shape.
Flour
Dry first coating that helps the egg mixture stick to the balls.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in deep oil until light brown. If the oil is too cool, the balls soak up grease and turn heavy; if it is too hot, the crust browns before the centre heats through. Steady, moderate heat gives a crisp outside and a hot inside.

Swap the potato

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

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

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

More fish balls recipes

Cod 40Salt 10Boston 6Cornmeal 3 See all 109 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes