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Codfish Balls

A fried mixture of boiled codfish, mashed potatoes, eggs, and seasonings coated in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Boil the codfish until well cooked, changing the water once.

Make the mixture

  1. Cream the boiled potatoes and add milk, butter, eggs, red pepper, and parsley.

  2. Mix the potato mixture with the codfish.

Fry and serve

  1. Mold the mixture into cakes, dip in flour, and fry in hot lard.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main flavor and the bulk of the cakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.
Boiled potatoes
Add body and softness that help hold the cakes together.
Milk
Moistens the potato mixture, keeping the cakes tender.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the potato mixture.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the floured outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb more fat and turn greasy, and the interior may not set before the outside darkens.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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