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Cod Fish Balls

A dish of cod fish and potatoes formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cod Fish Balls

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cod Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the cod fish in cold water.

  2. Remove the bones and break the fish into bits.

  3. Boil the fish in enough water to cover it.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and boil an equal quantity of potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes thoroughly while hot and mix with the tender fish.

Shape and fry

  1. When the mixture is cold, shape it into balls.

  2. Place the balls in a buttered pan and fry until 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 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

Cod fish
Provides the main protein and flaky body that forms the balls.
Potatoes
Starch binds the fish, giving the mixture a soft, cohesive texture when mashed.
Butter
Fat in the pan promotes browning and adds richness to the outside of the balls.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes while hot. Hot potatoes mash smoothly and blend evenly with the fish. Cooled potatoes turn stiff and gummy, which makes the mixture harder to bind and shape.

“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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