Name: Fish Balls a LA Noeeis
Ingredients: 1½ cups fish, picked in small pieces; ¾ cup milk; ¾ tablespoon butter; 1½ tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon celery salt; a slight grating of nutmeg; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Balls a LA Noeeis

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour until well blended.
Add the milk and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture leaves the bottom and sides of the pan.
Stir in the parsley, celery salt, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and fish; mix well.

Shape and serve

Form the mixture into balls without using flour.
Arrange the balls down the center of a dish garnished with a puree of peas and potatoes, using a pastry bag.
Garnish with parsley.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 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

Fish: Forms the main body of the balls and gives them their flavor.
Milk: Makes a thick, smooth sauce that binds the fish together.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk so the mixture holds its shape.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavor into the flour base.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk and flour mixture until it leaves the pan. The flour must be fully cooked into the milk so the mixture thickens and pulls away from the pan. If it stays loose, the mixture will be too soft to shape into balls and may fall apart.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, pepper. 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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Fish Balls a LA Noeeis