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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are fried balls made from codfish, boiled potatoes, eggs, milk, and seasoned with pepper, parsley, and seasoning, coated in cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water overnight.

  2. Boil the codfish in 3 quarts of cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the codfish and remove the bones.

  4. Run the codfish through a hash machine.

Shape and coat

  1. Run the cold boiled potatoes through the hash machine.

  2. Mix the codfish, potatoes, pepper, parsley, and seasoning well.

  3. Roll the mixture into 2-ounce balls.

  4. Make a batter with 2 eggs and a little milk.

  5. Dip the balls into the batter.

  6. Dip the balls into cracker dust.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in hot boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main body and flavor of the balls once flaked and mixed.
Cold boiled potatoes
Add starch and bulk that bind the fish and give the balls a soft, tender interior.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a batter that helps the coating adhere.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the balls absorb grease and turn heavy and oily before the coating sets. Enough heat sets the batter and crumb quickly and gives a crisp, browned surface.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, egg, milk. 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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