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Codfish Balls

Codfish and potato balls fried with butter and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil codfish and potatoes in plenty of cold water until potatoes are thoroughly cooked.

  2. Drain off all the water and mash the mixture with a potato masher.

  3. Add butter, beaten egg, and cream or milk to the mashed mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls or cakes.

  2. Heat butter and lard in a frying pan until hot.

  3. Fry the balls until they are a nice 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the cakes.
Potatoes
Starch that mashes into a soft body and holds the cakes together.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mash soft and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the mash and helps the outside brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until they are a nice brown. The mixture is soft and wet, so it can break apart or stick if the pan is not hot enough or the cakes are moved too early. Enough hot fat lets a crust form that holds the shape and browns the surface.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter. 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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