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Fish Balls

Fish balls made from codfish and mashed potatoes, fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish and potatoes

  1. Soak codfish in cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the codfish and pick into pieces.

  3. Cook potatoes in boiling water until soft.

  4. Drain the potatoes.

  5. Mash the potatoes in the pot they were cooked in.

Shape and fry

  1. Add butter, beaten egg, pepper, and onion juice to the mashed potatoes.

  2. Mix the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into deep fat.

  4. Fry the fish balls until well browned.

  5. Drain the fish balls on brown paper.

  6. Avoid frying more than five fish balls at a time to maintain oil temperature.

  7. Reheat the fat between fryings.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the salty, savory fish flavor that defines the fish balls.
Potatoes
Starch bulks the mixture and gives the balls a soft, tender interior.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potato mixture.

The step that matters

Avoid frying more than five fish balls at a time. Adding too many cold balls drops the oil temperature, so they absorb grease and brown unevenly instead of crisping quickly. Reheating the fat between batches keeps the oil hot enough to seal the outside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, 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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