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Codfish Balls

A fried codfish and potato mixture shaped into balls and cooked in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the croquette mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine mashed potatoes and minced codfish.

  2. Add butter and mix well.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot lard and fry until golden brown.

  2. For a nice presentation, use croquette baskets.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provides the starchy bulk that gives the croquettes their soft, tender body.
Codfish
Supplies the main flavor and savory protein of the croquettes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the mixture and improving its flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly and brown it. If the lard is too cool, the croquettes absorb excess fat, turn greasy, and can fall apart before the centre is set.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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