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Fish Balls

Fish Balls are fried balls made from mashed potatoes, saltfish, butter, and optional egg and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain and place in a bowl.

  2. Mash the potatoes until light and fine.

  3. Mix the mashed potatoes thoroughly with the chopped salt-fish.

  4. Taste and add salt if needed.

  5. Mix in the butter and egg if using.

  6. For moister balls, add milk to the mixture before shaping.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into round balls about the size of an egg.

  2. Heat oil in a pan and fry the balls until they are a handsome brown, about 5 minutes.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt-fish
Supplies the main salty, savoury flavour of the balls.
Potatoes
Form the starchy base that holds the balls together and gives them a soft interior.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Milk
Adds moisture, keeping the inside of the balls softer.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until handsome brown. Frying in hot oil browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and a crisp crust. If the oil is too cool, the balls absorb grease and turn soggy before browning.

“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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