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Fish Balls

Fish balls made from shredded salt fish, potatoes, butter, spices, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Cook the fish and potatoes in boiling water until the potatoes are tender.

  2. Drain thoroughly and mash the fish and potatoes until light.

  3. Add the butter, white pepper, cayenne, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

  4. Incorporate the beaten egg into the mixture.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot oil and fry until golden.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the mixture.
Potatoes
Mashed starch that gives the balls a light, soft body and binds the fish.
Egg
Binds the mashed mixture together so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Drain thoroughly before mashing. Excess water left in the cooked fish and potatoes dilutes the mixture and makes it loose. Loose mixture can fall apart or soak up oil and fry greasy, so the balls hold their shape better when drained well.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, potato, butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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