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Fish Balls

Fish balls made from boiled potatoes, salt fish, cream, butter, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sliced potatoes and salt fish together for about 30 minutes.

  2. Mash the mixture and add cream or milk, butter, and the egg.

  3. Beat the mixture together with a spoon.

Fry

  1. Heat fat in a pan until boiling hot.

  2. Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture into the hot fat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the balls hold their shape when fried.
Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the balls a soft, tender interior.
Salt fish
Supplies the main savoury flavour of the balls.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Dropping the mixture into the hot fat. The fat must be boiling hot so the outside of each ball sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the mixture soaks up oil, becomes greasy, and can fall apart.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, 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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