Skip to main content
Main

Codfish Balls

Codfish Balls are fried balls made from codfish, potatoes, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the codfish and potatoes

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water until freshened, changing the water as needed.

  2. Pick the codfish into small bits.

  3. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them while hot.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix the codfish with the mashed potatoes, using two-thirds potatoes and one-third codfish.

  2. Add plenty of butter to the mixture.

  3. Form the mixture into balls.

  4. Heat lard in a pan until hot, then fry the balls until golden 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Codfish
Provides the savory, salty fish flavor that defines the dish.
Potatoes
Bind the fish together and give the balls a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture and enhances flavor.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the outside of the balls to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until golden brown. The lard must be hot before the balls go in; otherwise they absorb oil and turn greasy instead of forming a crisp, browned crust.

“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.

More codfish balls recipes

Salt 3 See all 201 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes