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Codfish Balls

A dish of codfish and mashed potatoes formed into balls and fried.

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

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water.

  2. Heat the codfish until warm.

  3. Change the water until the fish is fresh.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes.

  3. Mix two-thirds mashed potatoes with one-third codfish while the potatoes are still hot.

  4. Add plenty of butter to the mixture.

  5. Form the mixture into balls.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until hot.

  2. Fry the balls 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. 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

Codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and firm, flaky body of the balls.
Potatoes
Bind the fish together and give the balls a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed mixture.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the balls.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until golden brown. Lard must be hot before the balls go in, or they absorb fat and turn greasy. Browning from frying forms a crisp surface through the Maillard reaction, so the balls should be turned until evenly colored.

“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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