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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are small fried balls made from minced codfish, mashed potatoes, butter, milk, egg, and coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Scald the codfish.

  2. Mince the codfish very fine.

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the mashed potatoes with milk and butter.

  2. Whip in the beaten egg.

  3. Add the hot codfish to the potato mixture.

  4. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

  5. Form the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the balls in egg.

  2. Coat the balls with fine crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in hot lard 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt-codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and the bulk of the fish filling.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the fish and adds softness and moisture to the interior.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the crumb coating adhere.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the mixture and adding flavor.
Milk
Moistens the potato mixture so it becomes smooth and easy to shape.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture thoroughly. Beating works the potato and fish into an even, cohesive paste. Under-mixing leaves loose pockets that make the balls crumble when shaped or fried.

Swap the potato

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

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

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