Skip to main content
Main

Filled Fish Balls

A savory dish of haddock fish balls simmered in a thickened milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Filled Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Salt the haddock overnight.

  2. Scrape the fish from the bone and skin, then chop it finely with the onion.

  3. While chopping, add a little cold water, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and celery salt to taste.

  4. Soak enough bread in cold water to make two good handfuls when squeezed.

  5. Add the soaked bread, melted butter, and beaten eggs to the chopped fish mixture.

  6. Form the mixture into about 15 balls.

Cook and thicken

  1. In a kettle reserved for fish, place a plate at the bottom and add enough water to cover the fish balls.

  2. Boil for 30 to 45 minutes, then drain the water, leaving 1 quart.

  3. In a bowl, mix the milk, sugar, and flour until smooth, then add to the reserved water.

  4. Return the fish balls to the kettle and boil until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve deliciously with broad noodles topped with browned fine noodles.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Provides the main body of the balls, with flaky white flesh that sets when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the chopped fish and bread so the balls hold their shape while boiling.
Bread
Soaked bread adds moisture and softness, keeping the fish balls tender rather than dense.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish mixture.
Milk
Forms the base of the thickened sauce, adding creaminess as it heats.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth sauce when it boils.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and flour mixture until it thickens. Flour must be mixed smooth before it goes in, otherwise it clumps. It thickens as it heats, so the sauce needs to boil until it coats a spoon.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, celery, bread, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, celery, bread, butter. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes