Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Codfish Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick the codfish fine and freshen it.
Make the mixture
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.
While the potatoes are hot, mix them with the codfish.
Add plenty of butter and form the mixture into balls.
Fry
Fry the balls in hot lard until golden brown.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch that mashes into a soft base that holds the codfish together.
- Codfish
- Provides the savory, salty flavor that defines the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, making the mixture softer and more flavorful.
The step that matters
Mix the potatoes with the codfish while they are hot. Hot potatoes absorb the fish and butter more evenly and bind into a smooth mixture. Once they cool, the starch firms up and the balls become stiff and crumbly.
“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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